The worst crime that a film can commit is to take a great idea with great potential, and then do little to nothing good with that idea. “Megalopolis” is unfortunately the new film to commit this great crime, despite its great attempt to be so much more.
This film has been a dream project of the great filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola, who created “The Godfather” and “Apocalypse Now.” He has been attempting to make this film since he dreamed of it back in 1980, but due to budget concerns, and even 9/11 canceling an attempt at getting it made, it has been on standby for many years now. However, in 2024 Coppola finally managed to make the film, using $150 million of his own money to fund the project.
Some may admire the film for the fact that it was made, but when looking at what came out in the end, Megalopolis ends up being an incredibly mediocre experience that will frustrate anyone who experiences it.
“Megalopolis” is set in a city called New Rome. It follows the political campaign of Cesar Catilina, and his fight against Mayor Cicero to make a better future for their city by introducing a new element called Megala to try and make a new utopia for a collapsing city. This summarization is about the most straightforward thing a viewer can muster from “Megalopolis,” because when watching it, many will find that it has practically no narrative and is instead muddled with too many ideas and characters that make the focus of the film nearly impossible to follow for the general audience member.
The director’s intention for the film was to create a futuristic vision of the dirty political scandals of the Roman Empire, and how the U.S. may be destined to end up being a reflection of that same tarnished history, all told through the story of Cicero and Cesar’s rivalry. Not only does the film not properly portray those events to how they played out, but it ends up being more interested in starting new ideas for the audience to think about, and never choosing to truly expand upon these ideas in an interesting manner.
There are points in the film where the main story is completely thrown out in favor of putting complete focus on a B-plot story that has little to no significance on how the main story plays out. Many of the characters in the film are made to be less of humans to relate to, and more so representations of bigger concepts like ignorant politicians, or the greed of the wealthy, or the desire to stick to knowing what has worked in the past instead of risking the potential of the future. This idea could work and has worked before in films “2001: A Space Odyssey,” Coppola’s work in “Apocalypse Now,” and in many of the Shakespearean political dramas that “Megalopolis” attempts to imitate, but in the end, the film isn’t smart or focused enough to make any of these ideas work. The film’s attempts at getting the audience to be absorbed in its ideas come off more as desperate than anything.
Many of Coppola’s past works have received criticism for being too daring or different for films at the time. Perhaps that may be the case with “Megalopolis,” and maybe in the future people may look back on this film and see the genius hidden behind it. But as of now, “Megalopolis” is a depressing film not for its material, but for its inability to bring the potential of its material to fruition.
