Film: “Megalopolis”: A never-ending train wreck

Hardly any other film has been hunted through the features sections so intensively this year and received such bad reviews in advance as Francis Ford Coppola’s two-and-a-half-hour late work “Megalopolis.” Viewers can now see for themselves why this is the case in the cinema.

A few critics and people from the film industry were at least partially inspired by the crazy science fiction story about a visionary architect who wants to build a New York of the future at the premiere in Cannes a few months ago. Is it because of the reverence for the great director name?

The 85-year-old Francis Ford Coppola really leaves nothing out in this film, which transfigures New York as “New Rome” in a pop culture antique spectacle. Countless references to Roman history, tons of quotes (including from Marcus Aurelius), hidden references to literary and film history from “Spartacus” to Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis” to the works of Sallust and Shakespeare. All of this is staged by big stars with endless pathos and an improvised-looking trick technique with moderate entertainment value.

The core story is very loosely based on the historical model of Catiline’s conspiracy in Rome in the middle of the first century BC (standard Latin reading 9th to 10th grade) and tells of the architect Caesar Catiline (Adam Driver), who is in a clinch with Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlos Esposito), the mayor of New Rome, but then experiences a romantic and conflict-filled love story with his daughter Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel).

Catiline can stop time while balancing on buildings at dizzying heights and philosophizing rather insubstantially about the future of the city with a profound expression. The image then simply freezes – time stopped. He also invented a kind of magical material called Megalon, an ethereal building substance that is supposed to be the material from which the futuristic city of the future will be built. To achieve this, social blocks must be diligently demolished.

The anger of the homeless residents is channeled by Catalina’s cousin Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), who ultimately even quotes Trump or the neo-fascist mainstream (“We’re taking this country back”) and gives a speech on a tree stump carved into a swastika. There is also the multi-billionaire Hamilton Crassus III. (Jon Voight), who plans to appoint Clodio as his heir, but first marries the television journalist Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza), who is portrayed as a disgusting schemer.

The whole thing is staged as a heterosexist sandal fetish film with flashbulbs in the New York party jet set, lots of coke, half-naked, eager women and determined, power-hungry men who are in competition with each other and constantly say pathetic things give.

The only non-submissive female character is the evil, power-hungry journalist who ends up being shot down with a golden arrow from a crossbow after she had just had a wicked-looking BDSM scene with the villain Clodio. Every now and then Dustin Hoffman alias Nush Berman, who is supposed to be a kind of factotum for the mayor without his role being really clear, also comes through the picture.

The architecture of the future remains nothing more than an art that is constantly invoked to change everything and make the eternal city shine in new splendor and can now and then be seen hinted at as a light installation. During production, the entire VFX team responsible for trick technology was laid off for cost reasons and replaced with a cheaper version. There were allegedly chaotic conditions on the film set. “It was like watching a train wreck day after day, week after week,” the Guardian quoted an unnamed member of the film crew as saying months ago.

Francis Ford Coppola worked on the film project for over 40 years. The first ideas come from the 80s, Coppola allegedly made various successful films just to raise money for his project. At the beginning of the 2000s he started shooting background material in New York until 9/11 came and the whole thing stopped. More years passed before he was able to realize his passion project, about which main actor Adam Driver doesn’t say a bad word.

But the two and a half hour film is too long, doesn’t get to the point narratively, gets lost without really developing its own coherent science fiction aesthetic and becomes more and more pathetic towards the end. The finale is a happy ending in which Cicero, son-in-law Catiline and his nice, smiling wife stand on a New Year’s stage in Times Square with a baby in their arms and tell each other the corny promise that they will always do the best for the city’s residents will do. Then time stops again and the baby crawls towards a glorious future. 40 years of artistic work, $100 million in production costs and the result is a New York comedy stable.

»Megalopolis«: USA 2024. Director/writer: Francis Ford Coppola. With Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel. 138 min. Start: 26.9.