Journalists noticed that the trailer contained gross inaccuracies. Critics’ comments were either completely made up or reworded so that their meaning was changed.
However, if the next trailer requires a negative quote that is not made up, I am happy to oblige:
“Megalopolis” is one of the worst films I have ever seen.
There is nothing good about this film. It seems to be the work of a filmmaker who had no courage to say “no” to anyone on set. The resulting debacle, a sort of science fiction homage to an attempted coup in Rome in 63 BC, is laughable.
Nothing works here – absolutely nothing. Coppola’s script is boring and astonishingly stupid, with plot threads that never resolve and fantasy-based concepts that clash with the social message about corrupting power. The actors look self-conscious in their silly Caesar haircuts and outlandish costumes; each of them is playing in a different film. The sets are confusing and the cheesy special effects seem like they were imported from the 1980 disco film “Xanadu.”
Almost every character has an absurd name that sounds like a product you’d buy on cable TV at 3 a.m. while high: Wow Platinum, Fundi Romaine, and Vesta Sweetwater are just a few of the more outlandish nicknames.
Jon Voigt plays Hamilton Crassus III, a banker and father of the film’s protagonist, Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver). Cesar wants to build a utopia, a (literally) glowing city on a hill filled with glowing treadmills and ramps. The city is to be built using his indestructible invention Megalon – which, if I understood the dialogue correctly, is made of his dead wife.
With his gray hair in a pseudo-Roman style, Voight looks like he came over from the set of Bob Guccione’s Caligula. At least he has the film’s one interesting moment. It involves an erection joke and a deadly golden crossbow. That’s worth half a star for me.
Did I mention that Cesar can also stop time by simply saying “stop time now!”? There isn’t even a musical fanfare or a fancy hand gesture for this. He just screams for time to stop, and it does. At some point he temporarily loses this ability because Cesar needs the love of Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel) to recharge his batteries. Or something like that.
Unfortunately, Julia is the daughter of Cesar’s arch-enemy, Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito). He rules New Rome, which looks like Manhattan if the entire district had been squeezed into a movie company’s logo animation. Cicero and Cesar yell at each other and give speeches about what is best for the city’s residents.
At one point, Cesar recites the monologue “To Be or Not to Be” from Hamlet, just like that.
Other characters include Clodio Pulcher (an over-the-top Shia LaBeouf), leader of an underground movement (and Crassus’ nephew), and the aforementioned Wow Platinum (a shockingly awful Aubrey Plaza), a TV reporter who was once Cesar’s lover. She marries Crassus but ends up seducing Clodio. I bet you can’t wait to see their sex scene in the IMAX, where Wow demands Clodio call her “Auntie” while they freak out.
The film’s narrator is Cesar’s driver, Fundi Romaine (Laurence Fishburne), who spouts wisdom that actually makes the audience dumber when we hear it. Dustin Hoffman is also here, playing the fixer. What he fixes is as good a guess as I am.
As if what’s on screen wasn’t bad enough, there’s a live segment in “Megalopolis” where a real person in your theater “interviews” a Cesar on screen. (Note: this may not be the case in every theater.) The sound at my screening was so bad that I didn’t know what the live guy was asking. When it comes to movie gimmicks, Coppola is no William Castle.
That the director spent 40 years making this worthless, 138-minute mess shocks me to the core. Megalopolis feels as if every iota of this once-great filmmaker’s talent was sold along with his vineyard. As I left the theater, I asked out loud, “THAT’S what he pawned all those grapes for?!”
½ ★
MEGALOPOLIS
Written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. With Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Dustin Hoffman. At AMC Boston Common, Landmark Kendall Square, Alamo Drafthouse Seaport, Suburbs. 138 minutes. R (sex, profanity, cruelty to moviegoers)
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe’s film critic.
