Full spoilers for the most insane movie that has ever been made ever. I know nobody is watching this because people have good sense. This is not the kind of thing I talk about. I am reviewing this simply because I have so much to say and I have to talk about it. I mean… holy cow.

Megalopolis stars Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Talia Shire, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, James Remar, D.B. Sweeney, Dustin Hoffman, and Jason Schwartzman. It was written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola.

What is this movie?
So Francis Ford Coppola has been trying to make this film for over forty years. It’s about building a new city and overcoming political division and creating the future you’d like for yourself amidst conflict and derision. It’s also about a man who is the best man in the world and has a dead wife and the ability to stop time via the use of a mystical element called Megalon, fighting against naysayers to create something he thinks is truly beautiful. A city, that he’ll build with Megalon. AKA what Francis Ford Coppola considers himself to be after years of having to fight to make movies his way. No studio would touch this. It almost got made before 9/11, but it’s obvious why that didn’t eventuate. He had to sell one of his vineyards in order to get the money to make this. Because nobody in Hollywood wanted to see a giant insane mediation on politics and the power of an idea that mixes ideas and characters from the Roman empire with futuristic ideals. I wonder why?
Onset this film was a nightmare to create. There were allegations that he groped the female extras on set in order to get them “in the mood” for certain scenes. He hired three cancelled actors in the thinking that “This movie is all about a difference in political ideals and I thought getting actors with differing viewpoints made the most sense for this film” even though the depth of the political messaging in this is “Poor people on the street is bad” and showing Shia LaBeouf standing in front of a tree stump shaped like a swastika while his followers wave confederate flags, and only Jon Voight was cancelled for his political views. Dustin Hoffman sexually assaulted women and Shia LaBeouf physically abused his former partners, which has nothing to do with politics.
The plot and aesthetics of the movie changed as it went. It’s set in a futuristic “New Rome” but you can see the Chrysler building and the statue of liberty, so it’s New York. Coppola, having never made a sci-fi movie about someone with powers before, drove his visual effects workers and crew insane because he had no clear vision of how he wanted the film to look. He often filmed in front of green screens and insisted they could make it look good afterwards. He also encouraged the cast to improv.
So after forty years, we’re given this, an insane film made by a lunatic who hasn’t made a movie in decades, creating something so derivative of everything that’s been made since, that tries to say everything but says nothing, that has dialogue so laughably terrible and some scenes where actors seem like they’re in different movies, that looks visually worse than most recent superhero movies. It includes terrible performances from great actors, a solid performance from Aubrey Plaza who can do no wrong, the worst performance of Shia LaBoeuf’s career, (Which says very little) and some of the grossest, most unnecessary and leering plot points I’ve seen. It is a massive turd of a film, and will ultimately serve as evidence to Hollywood that they shouldn’t let filmmakers take big swings, which will inevitably hurt the future of cinema when someone has a weird insane idea and is stopped from making a good thing.

Why do I want to talk about this?
It’s insane through and through and I want to discuss this weird man and the movie he made. I want to talk about each element that baffled me and dive into it. And I have a blog, so I shall. Stick with me, folks. Everything I’m about to talk about happened in a movie released in 2024.

Characters –
Cesar Catilina – Adam Driver
There’s a few things you must know about Cesar. For one thing, he’s the best man to ever live. He’s hated by many people and he’s actively decimating the buildings that real people live in to make way for his perfect city, but the moral conundrum of what he’s doing and why is never really explored. The important thing to know is he’s right, and eventually he does build his perfect city of leaves and shit, and people just realize finally that he’s the best. Seems somewhat interesting, doesn’t it, that the man who was sick of studio interference and made this all on his own made a movie about a man who made something beautiful and was right all along. He’s got a bad haircut and the ability to stop time by saying “TIME STOP” but only sometimes, and it may be a metaphor because he never uses it when it would actually be useful. Also he has a dead wife, who drove off a cliff or something because she was sad about how smart he was. Something like that. And at one point he just says “In the club” in a really weird way for no apparent reason. I don’t know. I like Adam Driver, he’s a good actor, he’s been in good things, he is not good in this. There’s one scene in particular that we’ll get to that’s just insane.

Julia Cicero – Nathalie Emmanuel
Julia is the daughter of the mayor and she falls for Cesar mainly because the plot dictates that she should. Nathalie Emmanuel is a good actress and I’d say she mostly comes out of this unscathed because she puts in an adequate performance, albeit one that asks very little of her, though I imagine it’s nice to not be leered at by Tyrese Gibson and Ludacris and spout bad dialogue about hacking for once. I don’t think it makes sense that she would fall for Cesar and once she does she loses all sense of character and identity. That in itself makes sense. I know The Godfather is not meant to be a movie about its female characters, but I can’t help but feel sad about the ways Connie and Kay were treated and handles narratively. It seemed like he was trying to lean a bit into a Romeo and Juliet kind of thing with her and Cesar but didn’t commit to it. The main family members Adam interacts with are his creepy uncle and cousin and his mom, who seemingly hates everything he does and doesn’t like him until she kind of does. So.

Mayor Cicero – Giancarlo Esposito
Throughout this batshit viewing experience I took note of several lines of dialogue that baffled me to my core. This one belongs to Giancarlo: “I was looking at the full moon when a cloud that looked like a hand grabbed it.” I mean, he’s in it. He’s a great actor. Zach and I, my friend who I saw this with, have discussed many times how he gets overused as a go-to villainous actor these days, because he’s so good, but casting agents seem to not understand that he can do more than just this. He’s more nuanced in this, but he’s not the best character either. I’m still baffled that him and Aubrey Plaza are in this. Again most of the dialogue in this is improvised and there’s so many characters, some of whom are completely unnecessary, that it’s easy to forget people are in it, and most of the lines he has are along the lines of “I HATE ADAM DRIVER AND HOW DARE HE FALL IN LOVE WITH MY DAUGHTER!” He hates Adam Driver so viscerally that he falsified or withheld evidence when he was the New Rome DA to make it seem as if Adam Driver did kill his wife. Why? What did he gain? I guess he just didn’t want Adam to get his way and make a new city. Positive reviews say it’s a man who lives in the now vs a man who thinks of the future. It is sort of but really it’s just a mayor having a shit fit for no reason. Also his wife is just there with him the whole time and at no point does she actually have agency or fight for her daughter or take a stand, she just stands by and gives her corrupt husband who holds meaningless grudges looks that say “I disapprove but I guess I love you and I shouldn’t speak out of turn so I won’t”. You know, the kind of toxic relationship that movies used to perpetuate and sometimes still do.

Clodio Pulcher – Shia LaBeouf
I mean… The fact that he’s in this movie makes my skin crawl. And not only is he in it, he puts in his worst performance out of all his movies, and maybe one of the worst performances of all time. I guess he is really the best person to cast if you want an obnoxious disgusting person that’s idolized by idiots and weirdos. But really this role is interchangeable. You could get James Franco or Jared Leto. As much as I despise Leto and don’t want to see him in things, he would be more convincing in this role. Don’t tell anybody I advocated for his casting, I didn’t. He would bring the douchey false messiah gravitas that this kind of character requires. I’m not saying he would be better or that I want to see that, but what we were given doesn’t work. Instead we’re told that this man fights against his cousin and uncle to start an uprising independent of all else and radicalizes the poor and displaced with charisma. But he clearly has no plan. He’s easily manipulated by Aubrey Plaza. And he’s a pouty whiney foppish rich prick kid who has sex with his sisters. He’s just mad that people talk about his cousin and so he takes on a vague political ideology and then gets killed by his followers when they realize Adam Driver’s city is great and this guy’s full of shit. I don’t believe for a second, as much as Coppola wants to lean into the “idiot masses” trope, and as much as I see actual people brainwashed by the internet and follow fucking dipshits, that this particular guy would appeal to anybody, especially the people that are actually hard done by.

Hamilton Crassus III – Jon Voight
A very weird character. He’s supposed to be the rich one, the banker with all the money. I think he’s the uncle of both Cesar and Clodio but I don’t understand where his son is or who he is. Of the cancelled trio, he features the second most. Dustin Hoffman is barely in this and then I think he got blown up. If you asked me what I thought Jon Voight did in this movie I wouldn’t have said “He marries Aubrey Plaza and does weird old horny guy dancing in a CGI coliseum.” There’s also an incredibly weird scene with a bow and arrow that we’ll get into. But yes. Confusing. Another thing is when the advance reviews were coming in for this it was said that Jon Voight puts forth “A surprisingly heartfelt and touching performance as Cesar’s advisor and father, standing by his son Cesar’s side after Hamilton is shunned by society for something he did.” I don’t know if this was reworked before release, but none of that is in the film, nor does it seem that Jon Voight is Adam Driver’s dad.

Wow Platinum – Aubrey Plaza
She’s the best part of this film, and indeed most things. She is quite possibly the funniest and best actress working today, though I’m biased in her favor. I wish I’d seen My Old Ass, the one where she talks to her childhood self, instead. It looks like a lot of fun. Unfortunately because this is a Coppola film, all the agency she has is tied to the other men in the film. She starts out as Adam Driver’s lover, but he doesn’t like her and she wants to get back at him, so she marries Jon Voight and has a horrifying sex scene with Shia LaBeouf and then dies. I’ll explain more.

Quotesalopolis –
“I like trees as much as the next guy.”
“Fuck your stupid Megalopolis.”
“Who doesn’t prefer girls? Who doesn’t prefer girls? Everyone prefers girls?” (Creepier out of the context I can’t remember but also Adam Driver was in the TV show Girls.
“What I like is those little hot dogs wrapped in the pastry.”
“Did you know that there is String Theory? Do you know what that means?”
“Oh, dear. Blah blah blah.” (Perfect summation of the movie.)
“It smells of you. Sandalwood. Citrus. Sweet male memories.”
“The new revolution, man! Sex! Drugs! And Megalon!”
“What’s a seven letter word for God’s revenge on mankind?”

Insane Scenes/Weird Inclusions:
Debating Society in the rafters
We’re introduced to all the main players when they all stand in these rickety wooden rafters and debate and introduce their ideologies. Where are the rafters? Don’t know. Is this scene necessary? Not really. There’s a two minute bit where Adam Driver just says Shakespeare and I tuned him out.

An inexplicable virgin auction
At Jon Voight’s weird Coliseum wedding reception there’s magicians and live battles and music, including a song performed by actress and musician Grace VanderWaal, who is a year younger than me but in this plays a 16 year old “Vestral virgin”. And for some reason she’s coveted by the city and this is why she’s a celebrity. I’ve read that he fashioned this one and done unnecessary subplot as a commentary on the treatment of pop stars and the ways they’re viewed, except that doesn’t happen anymore, people aren’t fetishizing the virginity and purity of teenage girl celebrities in that way or at least I hope they’re not. And I’m sure Vestral virgins are a real thing in Roman history and mythology, but I don’t want to see a movie in 2024 where a 16 year old girl is at the center of an auction where a sea of creepy old men hold up signs with QR codes to… take her virginity? Help protect her virginity? It’s not made clear. Then Shia leaks an obviously fake video of Adam Driver having sex with her, and Adam Driver, who’s on drugs and very drunk and having a gross trip, is beat up by circus folk and arrested, only to be released when Nathalie Emmanuel does some digging and learns that Grace’s character is actually 23 and she’s shunned and ostracized by society, leaving the movie with a grungy Robin Daggers (If you know, you know. I refuse to use the shortened version.) style song. It’s so weird, this subplot. And unnecessary.

Jason Schwartzman’s Unnecessary Inclusion
He plays one of the Mayor’s advisors and wanders around through the movie adding nothing to the proceedings. Also he was heavier at the time he filmed this and I’m not used to a non-skinny Jason Schwartzman. Though he added nothing I found his presence in the film annoying and wanted him to leave. I also found it ironic that Coppola got his nephew to do nothing in his film about uncles who support their nephews and give them jobs even though they do nothing.

How Cesar lost his groove AKA That time Shia LaBeouf paid a child to shoot his cousin in the head
It’s established early on that Cesar likes kids and will always make time to talk to them. At one point, out of nowhere, maybe in an attempt to call back to Marlon Brando getting shot in The Godfather, a little kid comes up to Adam Driver’s car to ask for an autograph (For what, I ask?) and then shoots him point blank in the head. Somehow he doesn’t die and that makes Shia mad because his former military underling that he became bros with during a parade was supposed to make sure he died. Instead they use Megalon to repair his face and he has a weird shiny half skeleton face that makes some shots look like an Adam Drive kaleidoscope. And while he’s temporarily crippled he goes to the bank to learn why his accounts have been frozen (Wow Platinum and Clodio be scheming) and screams “MY ACCOUNTS ARE FROZEN!” for a little while. Great stuff. Also, this is the perfect time to say “Time stop”, isn’t it? But he doesn’t. Why give him stupid time powers if he never uses them when they’re necessary.

Creepy, unlikeable and unnecessary: A Shia LaBeouf/Aubrey Plaza sex scene
I don’t have much to say about it. I just didn’t need to see a gross little man with a ratty ponytail and weird eyebrows going down on one of my favorite actresses and shrieking “I LOVE YOU, AUNTY WOW!” Horrifying. Thankfully their creepy horny manipulation of Jon Voight is vindicated shortly thereafter by the hero of the piece.

The Ballad of Jon Voight and his little bow and arrow
Earlier in the movie Jon Voight said he wanted to dress as Robin Hood at an upcoming party. On the night of said party, after he’s caught on to the deceit of his family and pretended to have a stroke, he is found in bed in his outfit by Wow and Clodio. As they plan to humiliate him and take more of his money, he looks at them and gestures at a large bulge under the blanket and says “What do you think of this boner I got?” I’m not kidding. And then he whips off the blanket, revealing a small bow and arrow, much smaller than the bulge, and shoots Aubrey Plaza in the chest, killing her instantly. Somehow despite being an 85 year old man, he’s able to reload incredibly quickly, and shoots his nephew in both ass cheeks. It’s fucking insane. I can’t tell you how insane it is. Oh, and then Shia and his groupie get strung up and hung by his former followers.

Babies are the future and Megalopolis lives
At the end of the piece, Adam’s empire is suddenly realized and Megalopolis is created and ready. How? I’m not really sure. It just is. And there, with some of the worst green screen and CGI of the whole thing, Giancarlo inexplicably forgives him, Crassus gives him all his money, the city loves him, and we see his baby sitting on the Megalopolis road with his family. This is an infant just left on the road. Weird. The city, by the way, looks like total shit. Both effects wise and it’s nothing I or anyone would ever want to live in. Coppola’s main basis of ideas for a utopia is a bunch of weird CGI leaves that form your house and most buildings and protect you when it’s raining. There are glowing CGI sidewalks that are essentially just those horizontal escalators at airports, whatever they’re called. And there’s giant translucent orbs that you can use to fly through the city. That’s the perfect city, the most beautiful utopia. It sounds incredibly boring. Anyway, Adam says “Time stop” one last time, and time stops for everyone but the baby. And then a black circle closes in around the baby and it’s the last thing we see. It’s meant to be “LOOK AT THIS BABY, HE’S THE FUTURE, HE WAS THE REAL MEGALOPOLIS ALL ALONG”, but it feels like a Loony Tunes cartoon ending. Horrible.

A Grand Spectacle –
People who like this movie are unaware of the improv, the last second digital effects, the insanity, the weirdness. At least, I think they are. I just can’t fathom how the visuals and long boring plot actually interested people, but here we are. There are good visuals buried in this, a nice time lapse of drawings and sketches of cities. But the people who are so excited for this “opus” have overlooked the dependence on crappy CGI they despise in Marvel movies. And yes, it’s unlike anything else right now. But also it’s not. It rips off plots from better movies that have come out in the last 40 years.
In scale and insanity, the only thing like it is Everything Everywhere All At Once, and I’ve seen the comparison made. The massive difference that puts Everything in my top 10 and makes this one of the worst things I’ve ever seen (Even though it’s interesting and baffling and I’d talk about it forever) is Everything is cohesive. There’s a method to everything going on, a logic that is followed. It’s a sci-fi movie with a conceit that isn’t just thrown in and used to no real effect. And it works because it’s telling an incredibly personal story about family, about losing sight of the person you could have been and wanted to be. The dialogue is real and funny and pointed and the characters feel real.
In Megalopolis, the characters are vague sketches of ideas, egotistical idiots that represent several different equally vague concepts and ideologies. It tries to say everything at once about politics, about filmmaking, about being a man fighting against obstacles, and what kind of world we’re leaving for future generations, and, much like Joker, which I’ll be reviewing the sequel of soon, manages to say callous and empty nothings about any and all of that. But boy is it a spectacle to watch. Not in a good way. I don’t want to rewatch it. It’s not so bad it’s good. But it is insane. Unquantifiably so.

Overall Rating – 0.1/10(This hasn’t been a normal review but I may as well rate it. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t garner some enjoyment, but for none of the right reasons. And really the 0.1 is only because Jared Leto isn’t in this and based on the other cast members and vibe you’d think he would be. It’s insane. I hate it. But you should watch it. Because there’s so much I didn’t discuss, like all the other pretentious pondering and horrible dialogue and how Laurence Fishburne is in this.)

Coming Next: More weirdness, a Ruddtrospective, and a Joker review! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay…