There is so much doesn't work in "Megalopolis" that it's difficult to know where to begin. The film is clearly a heartfelt Big Idea movie on Coppola's part, as he himself, frail as he has become, made clear in his introduction to the screening. Yet, sadly, *nothing* works.
The plot mechanics are incomprehensible, and it feels like at least 1hr was cut out from the final edit (what happens again to the Dustin Hoffman character? Wait, are the hero and his belle still in a relationship? What happened to the Mayor's offer? How did his face get back to normal? He's not soul crushed anymore? And, er, how does the rushed happy ending happen again??). The characters are just cardboard types (absurdly, the movie fails to make clear what the hero's job even is), and visually the movie is high cheese. You get the feeling it worked much better in Coppola's mind eye than the final product on screen.
This would not matter so much if the themes and ideas were up to par, but sadly that is far from the case. Intellectually and emotionally "Megalopolis" is just cheesy, and rather pretentious at that (cue Morpheus reading out Latin quotes that don't mean much). We are told about Utopia but never given any details about the titular megalopolis (but hey, it has futuristic moving sidewalks!), while architecture, urbanism and any kind of discourse around them are absent from the picture (wasn't that supposed to be the point of the film?). Most egregiously, the politics of the flick make no sense whatsoever: the problems bedeviling the Polis and why the people are so riled up are never addressed, except to show older buildings being torn apart.
Instead, Coppola focuses on the rich and powerful family-clan that seems to control everything, which is where you most clearly recognize his footprint. Sadly, "The Godfather" this ain't, and little makes sense here either, either plot-wise or emotionally. Coppola wants very much to riff on the neo-Roman dimension, which does not bring much except to have the narrator repeat ad nauseam (hey, I can do Latin too!) that New Rome (which is us, get it??!) is decadent and about to fall. There is a vague sense that a Trump-like leader is emerging, but that would not be the protagonist, whose point of view we most adopt throughout the film.
That is outrageous: if there is one thing we learned in the 20th century, besides "demagogue Hitler-types are bad", it is that Utopia should never be a one-man-invention and gift to the people. Yet, to cut a long story short, there is a sense that it is exactly what Coppola is driving at, removing any kind of nuance and subtlety in the process.
The plot mechanics are incomprehensible, and it feels like at least 1hr was cut out from the final edit (what happens again to the Dustin Hoffman character? Wait, are the hero and his belle still in a relationship? What happened to the Mayor's offer? How did his face get back to normal? He's not soul crushed anymore? And, er, how does the rushed happy ending happen again??). The characters are just cardboard types (absurdly, the movie fails to make clear what the hero's job even is), and visually the movie is high cheese. You get the feeling it worked much better in Coppola's mind eye than the final product on screen.
This would not matter so much if the themes and ideas were up to par, but sadly that is far from the case. Intellectually and emotionally "Megalopolis" is just cheesy, and rather pretentious at that (cue Morpheus reading out Latin quotes that don't mean much). We are told about Utopia but never given any details about the titular megalopolis (but hey, it has futuristic moving sidewalks!), while architecture, urbanism and any kind of discourse around them are absent from the picture (wasn't that supposed to be the point of the film?). Most egregiously, the politics of the flick make no sense whatsoever: the problems bedeviling the Polis and why the people are so riled up are never addressed, except to show older buildings being torn apart.
Instead, Coppola focuses on the rich and powerful family-clan that seems to control everything, which is where you most clearly recognize his footprint. Sadly, "The Godfather" this ain't, and little makes sense here either, either plot-wise or emotionally. Coppola wants very much to riff on the neo-Roman dimension, which does not bring much except to have the narrator repeat ad nauseam (hey, I can do Latin too!) that New Rome (which is us, get it??!) is decadent and about to fall. There is a vague sense that a Trump-like leader is emerging, but that would not be the protagonist, whose point of view we most adopt throughout the film.
That is outrageous: if there is one thing we learned in the 20th century, besides "demagogue Hitler-types are bad", it is that Utopia should never be a one-man-invention and gift to the people. Yet, to cut a long story short, there is a sense that it is exactly what Coppola is driving at, removing any kind of nuance and subtlety in the process.
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