Express.co.uk caught the one-off Ultimate IMAX Experience of Francis Ford Coppola’s ambitious new epic in Hollywood last night.
Jon Voight and other stars lined the red carpet of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre before the special screening of Megalopolis began with a live-stream interview with The Godfather and Apocalypse Now director.
The Oscar-winning legend behind some of the greatest films ever made has had this passion project in the works for decades.
Only in recent years did the 85-year-old take the plunge by selling a portion of his California winery to self-fund the $120 million sci-fi drama.
Reviews from Cannes earlier this year were polarising, but given the initial reaction to some of his best work, we were full of anticipation to see what the master had cooked up.
Alas, it’s mostly terrible.
Megalopolis is set in an alternate 21st century where New York is called New Rome, and loosely adapts the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63BC; an attempted coup of the Roman state. Still with us? Adam Driver stars as an architect called Caesar Catilina, who clashes with Giancarlo Esposito’s corrupt mayor Franklyn Cicero, as he plans to rebuild the metropolis as a utopia after a disaster.
An impressive all-star cast including Aubrey Plaza, Nathalie Emmanuel, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter and Dustin Hoffman act their socks off in this surreal Shakespearean soup of a picture. Yet their talent can’t save what ultimately amounts to a pretentious $120 million student art film.
From the word go, Megalopolis is completely baffling, incoherent, overstuffed and barely resembles anything amounting to an actual movie. Coppola may pride himself in his incredible ambition, but the constant bizarre visuals and CGI slop soon become tiresome.
As was reported at Cannes, there is a 20-second or so live actor segment, where a man walks in front of the actual projection screen, sets up a microphone and asks the footage of Driver a question at a press conference before wandering off—a first for Hollywood for sure, but one of countless confusing and meaningless moments. Given the organisation required, we’d be surprised if this live moment is replicated in IMAX cinemas around the world beyond this one-off Ultimate IMAX Experience we had to fly Stateside to witness.
The film’s saving grace that keeps it from the bowels of a 1 star rating is not just its cast’s acting talents, but the rich and elaborate costume design that could well get Oscar-nominated, but that’s about it. We felt like we’d just seen the surreal meanderings of Yorgos Lanthimos, mixed with David Lynch at his worst, attempting something of a Shakespearean Blade Runner.
Had a producer actually honed Coppola in or given this work to a filmmaker like Denis Villeneuve to mould into something worth putting out, this film could well have had potential. A perplexing disappointment, but one that cinephiles will no doubt talk about for decades. Get ready for the inevitable ironic cult screenings in the years to come.
Megalopolis hits cinemas on September 27, 2024.