Megalopolis and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Is it just me, or have the bad movies gotten more interesting in 2024? Sure, they’re still bad movies, but I’ve had a lot to talk about when it comes to stuff like Borderlands and The Crow, and while I was looking forward to enjoying this as a good movie when it was first announced, the last few months of bad press and worse behavior from its grumpy creator has lowered my expectations considerably. Is this a cinematic triumph from one of its greatest auteurs, or is this simply a case of an old man yelling at clouds for two hours? Let’s find out!!
In the city of New Rome, there is a struggle for the fate of society as Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) envisions a Utopia within his lifetime brought about through the building of a great city he will dub Megalopolis. Despite his brilliant foresight into the future of humanity, he is opposed by the mayor of New Rome, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), as well as certain members of his own family who are jealous of the genius and acclaim that seems to come so naturally to Cesar. One such enemy, at least at first, is the daughter of the mayor Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) who wants to humiliate him for how he has humiliated her father, and yet even she cannot help but see the perfect world that Cesar hopes to bring about as she spends more time with him. Alas, outside forces are not the sole source of Cesar’s struggle as his genius compels him to act out in self-destructive ways as the truly exceptional among us often do, and it threatens to diminish the wisdom trapped within his skull. With so many forces trying to stop the perfect future, can Cesar convince the common folk to back his cause and pressure the government to put all their eggs in his basket? What is the true source of his self-destructive tendencies, and will Julia have what it takes to keep his mind clear and his butt out of jail? Is it just me, or is the writer, the director, and possibly even the producer of this movie, trying to say something with this unsung and tortured genius trying to make the world a better a place according to his image of it?
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