A legendary director and an all star cast, what could possibly go wrong? Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) is head of the Design Authority, a highfaluting role in New Rome, a futuristic city of art deco skyscrapers. Cesar has some emotional issues. In fact everyone here has issues. Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) has a headstrong daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) and a city to run. Cesar and Cicero do not get on and that’s the crux of Megalopolis, power struggle. Between the practical and the dreamer. Each has a right hand man. Cesar has Fundi (Laurence Fishburne) who’s also our narrator pointing out the obvious with a bit of exposition. Cicero has Jason (Jason Schwartzman), who does very little to be honest. The city is bank rolled by Cesar’s uncle, the lecherous Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight) and his party loving politically meddling son Clodio (Shia LaBeouf). Add in reporter and Cesars sometime girlfriend, soon to be bride to Crassus, wait for it…. Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza) and you’ve got all the main players. I could go on, but we’d be here all night, sorry Dustin Hoffman. The tone is frivolous and florid. Cicero pretends to be for the people and Cesar accuses him of being a slumlord unable to see his artistic vision of utopia, Megalopolis. A city created around nature, time, people. All this could be quite functional, dramatic, a familiar tale (or fable as is stated at the start) played out in a crafted cinematic world… but for a couple of things. A new magical material that Cesar has invented called Megalon, with which he plans to build his new city and the fact that he can freeze time! No one else seems to know this, aside Julia who can too, all without explanation. “Stop stop, this doesn’t make sense” she says, she’s not wrong. It jumps about, but rarely finds any firm ground. Cesar is mourning his wife from a subplot that’s as thin as the main. Julia is trying to build bridges between him and her father. There’s scandals with virginity pledging pop starlets. Drug induced dream sequences. A knackered old Russian satellite floating in space. It’s indulgent decadent clap-trap. Everyone is awful. Well aside Driver, who doesn’t hold it together, but miraculously retains his dignity. It’s style over very little substance, but the style is occasionally fun to watch and it’s clear that no expense has been spared. There’s some fantastical ideas and some fantastic imagery, but sadly instead of building on them, it collapses under them. It turns out that a 40 year gestation on a project, does not the great film make. When the director self finances to the tune of $120 million and the best thing is the The The needle drop on the closing credits, something has gone wrong.
3/10
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