MEGALOPOLIS is a lot of things. It's a sprawling epic tale ('A Fable' as stated), audacious and very messy. Mainly, it's Francis Ford Coppola taking a big swing - again - and not giving a fuck at 85. Some of it may seem familiar and some of it will have people on their feet applauding the testicular fortitude, while some of it will have people walking out wondering if dementia has finally caught up with him.
'It Is What It Is - Deal With It, Motherfuckers!' is basically Coppola's response to criticism. And judging from recent recuts of earlier work to present them in definitive versions, Coppola has decided to cement his legacy as a cinema artist before leaving the stage."
The best way to describe the film is as a huge mashup of elements - plotwise, Coppola uses a historical incident from Ancient Rome referred to as 'The Catalline Conspiracy' as the framework for the allegorical aspects of the story (and yes, being a typical American, I had to look it up). The tone, look and feel is raided from well over the past 100 years of American culture; one of the big touchstones is the 1936 film THINGS TO COME and a myriad of references, allusions and homages.
Coppola was a guest programmer on Turner Classic Films the night before the screening stumping for MEGALOPOLIS and the two films he chose were screwball comedies, LIBELLED LADY and THE AWFUL TRUTH. As it turns out, those choices did have bearing, as MEGALOPOLIS does take aspects of the 30s-40s screwball comedy, but doesn't do full-on pastiche (it doesn't reach the velocity, but that doesn't seem to be Coppola's intent). Although in the first third, it seemed like we were getting FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S 'THE HUDSUCKER PROXY'.
Other references: THE FOUNTAINHEAD/ATLAS SHRUGGED (without the neurotic over-the-top sexual tension; there's a bit of Ayn Rand in the mix since it's about utopias, but not so much as to poison the entire enterprise - along with the THINGS TO COME, it could also be called FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S 'TOMORROWLAND'. Not such a reach, since Brad Bird gets a mention in the 'Special Thanks' credits); thrillers of the 1940s such as NIGHTMARE ALLEY; some direct refrences to THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER. The epics of the 1950s set in Rome, of course (the great score has some homage to Miklos Rozsa and Dimitri Tiomkin - and there's even a chariot race!); silent films (which become more apparent in the last third of the film when the referencing moves more into the background and the film becomes its own thing). I'll even go out on a limb and say there's even a little bit of BATMAN (Tim Burton's Keaton) there.
That also goes to the actors: high praise for everyone involved from Coppola veterans Giancarlo Esposito, Lawrence Fishbourne, Jason Schwartzman (who I was mistaking for Stanley Tucci at first, then did the math on the age) to 'newbies' Adam Driver (whose character could be seen as an extremely benign version of a creative genius than what he portrayed in ANNETTE), Aubrey Plaza ('Wow Platinum' has a touch of Ida Lupino/Audrey Totter), Shia LeBoeuf, Jon Voight (playing a slightly more benign version of NYC character Trump). Grace VanderWaal makes an impression as a Taylor Swiftish type character; Nathalie Emmanuel isn't bad, but at times appears to be slightly overwhelmed and Dustin Hoffman's character is in and out quickly before making an impression (which may be due to post-production concerns, possibly).
I deliberately haven't gotten into the plot/story of the film for the reason that it doesn't ultimately matter - if you come into MEGALOPOLIS expecting a three-act story structure hitting all the beats that you read about in articles & books about screenwriting, you're not going to be happy from the start. As stated before, part of MEGALOPOLIS' title is 'A Fable', reinforced by the first scene of the film, shown in a teaser trailer of Adam Driver's Caesar preparing to step off a building. If you don't accept the outcome of that scene at the start, nothing after that is gonna make you like it better.
Another snide title that could be applied to MEGALOPOLIS could be FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S 'SOUTHLAND TALES' which is not that far off the mark. I did do a re-watch of ST before Monday's screening to get into a proper frame of mind, and it turns out it was a good choice. SOUTHLAND TALES is an overstuffed commentary (in either version) of America in the early 00's, coming out of the 90s with the Book of Revelation taking place in Los Angeles and what was considered to be at the time absurd satire that was ridiculous has turned out to be more coherent than our current nightmare reality.
MEGALOPOLIS is an overstuffed commentary by a veteran filmmaker of America (NYC as an alternate version of Rome) using a historical incident as a center for a sprawling spewing visual essay around the statement, "We Need To Talk About The Future". It's the work of a director not at all concerned of 'weekend box-office success'. Like ST, it's designed to be watched repeatedly and being able to find things you may have missed the last time you saw it and to have a life well beyond the 1 to 2 week window of theatrical release (if the film gets a theatrical release at all).
It's an Event Experience - if you're lucky and savvy enough to be near and attend an 'Ultimate IMAX Experience' with its William Castle-ish interactive scene (which is something Coppola apparently wanted to do for sometime; TWIXT had an interactive element for a screening or two, but it didn't work out ultimately). It's unwieldy; some of it is clunky and eye-rolling but that is balanced out by great performances, visual artistry and callbacks to previous work. It's the sum of a career that spans some 60 years and Good or Bad, it's MEMORABLE.
