We wanted to like Francis Ford Coppola’s unwieldy passion project, but it’s a mess.

PLOT: In a futuristic metropolis named New Rome, the city’s mayor, Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), battles an idealistic architect named Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver), who wants to create a sustainable utopia.

REVIEW: One of the most unique things about Francis Ford Coppola as a director is the fact that he’s probably the only one I can think of who’s made at least four outright masterpieces and probably an equal number of disasters. For every Godfather, there’s a One from the Heart, but Coppola, to his credit, has never allowed critics or audiences to dictate the movies he makes, and for better or worse, this is exactly the film he wanted. Whether or not anyone else will understand or appreciate what he’s doing is another question. I must admit that even though I can find merit in almost all of his work, Megalopolis escaped me.

An ambitious futuristic “fable” (which is what it’s called on-screen), the film imagines a kind of uncanny, futuristic New York City crossed with the politics and intrigue of Ancient Rome. New Rome seems to exist outside of the laws of gravity, with Adam Driver’s Cesar able to stop time at will and seeking to create a utopian society within the city. This seems equally inspired by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and what Coppola himself tried to pull off with his production company, American Zoetrope, in the seventies and early eighties. 

Watching Megalopolis, it wasn’t hard to see the thematic parallels between Driver’s Cesar and Coppola, especially if you know his work. People condemn Cesar for his ego and the scope of his vision, which happened to Coppola numerous times over his career (including now), with him risking disaster almost every time he made a movie.

Indeed, I despise the fact that Megalopolis turned out to be such an unwieldy mess, as the last thing I wanted to do at this year’s TIFF was join the choir of Coppola haters – of which I’ll never be one, even if I didn’t like his movie.

Megalopolis is ambitious, but it’s exhausting and almost incomprehensible. It feels like a six-hour movie Coppola cut down to 138 minutes, with characters, such as Dustin Hoffman as the mayor’s fixer, getting oddly unceremonious exits and noted character actors like James Remar stuck in walk-ons.

The first half of Megalopolis is better than the second, as for a while, you get caught up in the movie’s scope, with Coppola creating a beautifully stylized world. He invested a good chunk of his fortune in it, and he and DP Mihai Mălaimare Jr. have created a visual feast, especially on IMAX. However, the film’s content is nearly incomprehensible, drowning in metaphors, montages, and camp performances that are embarrassing for those involved. Jon Voight, in particular, as the man bankrolling Cesar’s vision, gets some howlers, particularly an unfortunate scene with a bow-and-arrow. The same goes for Nathalie Emmanuel, who seems bewildered by her strange role as the mayor’s daughter who falls in love with Cesar (and at one point masquerades as a sixth-grader). Ditto for Giancarlo Esposito, who attempts to underplay his highly melodramatic role, but again, I hesitate to blame either of them. 

Adam Driver at least has the gravitas to play his iconoclastic role. Still, he’s a lot more convincing when he’s playing Cesar as a genius than lengthy bits where we’re expected to believe he’s also a drug-addled playboy. Of everyone, the two actors who fare the best are Shia LaBeouf and Aubrey Plaza. They play the two most over-the-top characters and seem to have a whale of a time. LaBeouf plays Cesar’s cousin, a socialite who lusts for Emmanuel’s Julia and control over the city. Plaza is a TV presenter (named Wow Platinum) who is scorned by Driver and wants revenge. Both seem to know what kind of movie they’re in, and I can imagine Coppola cackling with glee and screaming “more” and “more” whenever they start getting really crazy on camera.

As this is still a Coppola movie, there are some impressively mounted set pieces, such as a sprawling one at New Rome’s version of Madison Square Garden, where a Taylor Swift-style pop star (played by Grace VanderWaal) auctions her virginity. Many Coppola regulars show up, including Laurence Fishburne, Cesar’s chauffeur, who also narrates the movie, plus Talia Shire and even Jason Schwartzman. There’s even a live theatre component where, at the screening I attended, an actor shows up in the theatre to interact with Driver’s character on-screen. 

In the last forty minutes, Megalopolis becomes a real disaster, with so much jam-packed into the movie’s third act that it becomes almost impossible to keep up with it. It becomes nonsensical as it races towards its ending. Again, one can’t fault Coppola for his ambition. He financed the movie with money he earned, so he had every right to make exactly the film he wanted to make. But it’s hard to imagine this ever connecting with anyone other than hardcore Coppola devotees or maybe connoisseurs of bad cinema.