Megalopolis: A Fable… A Review

Aaron Guadamuz

In the vast landscape of aged filmmakers who could use a pile of cash to create their one long-lost vision, is Francis Ford Coppola the only one available to us?

In a rather awkward recent conversation, a female friend of mine explained to a group of her male friends, including myself, how medication can also be taken vaginally if, for some reason, the mouth is unavailable. Having never had the need to know of this before, all of us sat in silence dealing with the images this was creating in our skulls. I recalled this conversation while watching Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis because it occurred to me that this script is what would likely have happened if Ayn Rand took LSD vaginally.

The film is in love with the idea of the capitalist as hero who will finally create a place where the common plebe can live in bliss along with those who are bathing in Benjamins because, let’s be real here …. cash is king and, despite what anyone says, the true key to happiness and enlightenment. Much like in the Randian Universe, the heroes of Megalopolis are the ones with extremely large bank accounts that can grease wheels and have the luxury of spending most of their time laying around deciding what is best for all of us.

We are able to enjoy this spectacle because of one thing …

CASH.

Francis has cash. In fact, Francis has lots of cash and he is throwing a party here. So we can all relax knowing that we didn’t come to a movie, we came to a party (one that cost $120 million) and this has everything a Coppola party should have…. sex, violence, wooden, nonsensical interaction between humans, spectacle and an ensemble cast made up of mostly cancelled actors.

One third of the way in, I was thinking that this may be the first time I have sat in a theater and watched something that has zero redeeming qualities (more on this later). The costumes and hairstyles are obnoxious with most of the male characters looking like Moe Howard in a Dick Tracy film or like they got a discount on the wardrobe from Front 242’s 1992 tour. The women’s costume designs reveal what good old Francis may be thinking about when the lights go out. The production design can’t decide if it wants to commit to a fully built retro/future world and feels half done, leaving us to wonder how far $120 million actually goes. Witnessing this is like realizing that the one possible small inheritance you may be getting from your only wealthy uncle in reality is currently being spent in small bills at the Spearmint Rhino.  

Megalopolis takes exposition to all new heights. Characters don’t move a muscle in this film without a lengthy explanation in either rambling dialogue or inexplicable narration by Laurence Fishburn. There is no subtlety to be found and Francis gives us the manual for normal human activity while giving no explanation for some of the most baffling of moments, like when the film all of a sudden turns into a pop idol performance with an audience of gazillionaires pledging large amounts to sponsor a young girl’s virginity, or when the screen is flooded with images of holiday meals from around the world, Nazis and, yes, artwork that was obviously AI generated. Before you cry foul, Francis is footing the bill so please shut the fuck up.

In the 1978 Star Wars Christmas special, there is a scene where Chewbacca’s son appears to get sexually aroused by strange acrobats on the holotable. This scene is almost shot for shot recreated in one baffling sequence with special effects that look like Francis found and brought back the holiday special team.

The current state of Coppola is an all too familiar conversation that happens with film enthusiasts. You have your admirers of the early work turned haters, apologists, and the occasional loyal fan who is still butt hurt that Jack didn’t win best picture. It could be said that Francis has always been prone to embrace technology, but the truth is that he is more apt to smother it.

When I was in film school in the 90’s this subject arose. Coppola’s most recent movie at the time was Dracula and the teacher stated that Coppola was “overly impressed” with gadgets and directed the film from a trailer that sounded like it was a mile away from the actors and equipped with all the latest in audio visual monitoring and lasagna making. Those who were actually there will be quick to call bullshit on this, and rightfully so, but with Megalopolis, it is like you gave the guy who directed the Taco Bell late night commercials (clearly designed for a certain “demographic”) nine figure money and said, “Alright Buddy, we will check back in a couple of weeks”. The film has some of the strangest special effects ever to pass quality control. It leaves one to wonder if this is intentional or did it get to a point of no return.

Well…. this is how it looks……. we are just gonna have to go with it.

At the risk of bludgeoning a dead horse further, we have seen self-funded and high concept before. In 2011, exercise equipment tycoon, John Aglialoro, found himself in a pickle. He owned the film rights to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged but the clock was ticking. He had 15 years to make the movie after he purchased the rights to the book in 1992 and all studio deals had fallen through leaving his only choice being to self finance the film.  Anyone who has read all 26,000 pages of that book knows that it cannot be done in one movie, so a trilogy was planned. Atlas Shrugged is a story where the concepts and world building goes north as it moves along, but, in the case of this trilogy, the production budget went south with each chapter. The third installment looks like it was shot on VHS with Z list actors.

Oddly enough, Atlas Shrugged was the movie that Al Ruddy was set to produce right after the Godfather with an all-star cast including Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway, but this fell apart when Rand refused to allow the script to cut one word of the book’s climax which is a 100-page nonsensical speech by the story’s shadowy capitalist hero John Galt. The parallels between Atlas and Megalopolis both on and off the screen are both obvious and boring as fuck.

So now sitting in the theater with 80% of Megalopolis in the books, I am still looking for redeeming qualities when one finally comes along and, shockingly, in the form of Jon Voight. This scene has been much talked about since the debut of the film at Cannes but all I will say is that I was not sure if I was ever going to recover from the laughter that it caused from deep within me. I can honestly say that this review is not even fair because I missed a good 20 minutes of what happened after it. I laughed so hard I had to remove my glasses more than once to wipe the tears away. This is what you can call a redeeming quality.

Little did any of us know that Megalopolis is actually another long awaited sequel.

In the current state of cinema, where every movie trailer is either for the latest “groundbreaking” horror film from an overrated “visionary” filmmaker and too cool for school indie company..cough…A24…cough..NEON…… or movie with a spandex clad superhero reporting to an aged movie star getting a final big paycheck ….or sequel to something from 30 years ago that you didn’t give a shit about the first time…..or a too smart for the rest of us coming of age drama starring up and comers with smug, bummed and blank stares, is there room for absolute unbridled insanity from one of the most influential filmmakers of all time?

If I can choose to live in a world with or without Megalopolis…….

I am all in….