Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis is a $120 million hot mess

Great artists don't have to be great all their lives – a fact confirmed by Francis Ford Coppola, whose run began in the 1970s (The Godfather, The conversation, The Godfather Part II, Apocalypse now) is arguably the best of all time, and his later work has been wildly mixed and contains no other undisputed masterpieces. Megalopoliswhich Coppola spent four decades trying to create and which he financed himself, is an attempt to recapture his former glory, full of epic visions and grand themes and gestures. Unfortunately, this ambition leads to a daring saga that offers far more moments that stumble than soar. It's a mess to admire – but a mess nonetheless.

Megalopoliswhich hits theaters September 27, dreams of a better tomorrow by looking to yesterday as Coppola grapples with the past — Art Deco and German Expressionism, archaic car radios and handwritten letters as well as iris shots, canted angles, split screens and picturesque backdrops backgrounds – in an attempt to imagine the future. It's a noble effort, but one that doesn't work, as its marriage of old and new (including lush animation and CGI effects) is clumsy and often unsightly, its frame full of glittering gold tones, its opulent set design, and its outlandish overlapping images make the events appear garish and affected.

From a purely aesthetic perspective, this is Coppola's first feature film since 2011 Twitter is a sloppy mess marked by occasional ravishing sights (e.g. two lovers death-defyingly kissing on steel girders above a metropolis) and a plethora of clunky compositions that vainly strive for polish.

MegalopolisThe story is set in a 21st century Big Apple known as New Rome because, as the director's script makes clear, it is a science fiction parable about the fall of an empire. In this third-millennium city, a war rages between Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), chairman of the Design Authority, and Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito). Believing that Franklyn is a regressive “slumlord”, Cesar triggers a confrontation by demolishing a seemingly subsidized apartment building to build Megalopolis, a utopia he plans to build using a magical organic substance called Megalon. The specific nature of this material is never explained, but it has enormous potential to create an eco-paradise where everyone has a garden, houses grow together with their residents' families, and people move around using moving walkways.

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A spiritual descendant of The fountain headis Howard Roark, The architect Cesar has the power to literally stop time because he is an artist, and his forward-thinking designs represent a threat to the status quo represented by Franklyn, who tried (and failed) in his previous post as a prosecutor to do so because of Cesar Convicted of the murder of his first wife.

Despite Franklyn's hatred of his adversary, his beloved daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) falls in love with him and becomes his romantic partner and muse. This angers Franklyn as well as Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), Cesar's TV journalist girlfriend, who responds to his rejection by approaching Cesar's banking uncle Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), an old fool with untold wealth. Crassus has four children who fuck each other in incestuous ways, and the sneakiest of them is Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), a long-haired, cross-dressing weasel who desires Julia and loathes his cousin Cesar.

Coppola conveys all of this through a frantic plot and accompanying visuals Megalopolis staggering, whirling and fidgeting as if detached from convention, continuity and the earth itself. It's a series of home run swings, and when they connect, they're powerful. All too often, however, they sniff wonderfully.

The same goes for the film's performances, led by Driver in a turn that vacillates between arm-waving, toe-tapping flamboyance, blasé gruffness and pretentious talk. Cesar is a motley collection of ideas, emotions and tics, and although Driver fully commits to the role, he cannot overcome the plot's drastic register changes – right up to a sequence in which he is revived by Megalon and, for that matter Example Time, resembles a space age version of Aaron Eckhart's Two-Face The Dark Knight.

Laurence Fishburne provides a heavy-handed narration as Cesar's driver and Talia Shire babbles about string theory as his “crazy” mother, while Plaza clumsily tries to chew the scenery and Emmanuel strives to be the innocent and pure heart of the film. Dustin Hoffman, Jason Schwartzman, James Remar and other notable faces pop up every now and then in throwaway roles, helping to make the whole affair seem like a kitchen sink.

Coppola caters to every whim imaginable Caligulacelebrations in style, 2001-like transformations and circus-style drug trips. From a purely logical point of view, Coppola's concept of the future is nonsensical (for example, why are chariot races back in fashion?), and from an allegorical point of view –Megalopolis finally describes itself as “a fable” – it is transparent and unsubtle.

The director's boldness sporadically pays off, but these sparse moments are drowned out by a tidal wave of absurdity, like when Plaza's gold-digger wraps herself in Cesar's coat and notices that it smells just like him—a combination of sandalwood, citrus, and… “sweetness.” male memories.” MegalopolisThe operatic exaggeration is intentional, as are the many flattering parallels it draws between Coppola and Cesar, two dreamers committed to forging a hopeful and groundbreaking path for themselves, their art, and the world at large. However, the film's sincerity is at odds with its comedic attempts, highlighted by a late boner gag involving Voight. Only LaBeouf strikes the right balance between seriousness and weirdness as a somewhat Trumpian rabble-rouser, his Clodio a petulant would-be tyrant motivated by jealousy, greed and ego.

Megalopolis there is no lack of imagination and fills its 138 minutes with all sorts of confusing and beguiling madness: a vestal virgin lures the bigwigs for donations with a song and is then exposed as a fraud; a surprise attack with a crossbow; and Cesar does a spontaneous rendition of hamlet“To be or not to be” speech. To suit every taste of Shakespeare, Coppola delivers lame humor (as she goes off on her boyfriend, Wow tells Cesar that he's “anal as hell” while she's “oral as hell”) and lurid sub-Myst Panoramas characterized by blurry cityscapes, crystalline home theater projectors and huge clocks, because Cesar is obsessed with time.

In the middle of the IMAX premiere of the New York Film Festival, the film stopped, the lights in the hall came up, and a theater actor approached a microphone to “ask” the on-screen Cesar a question – a device that conveys the idea of ​​dialogue should strengthen is the key to saving civilization. Unfortunately, it's up to the author Megalopolis is too silly to start a serious conversation.