17/41

It’s the same shot turned and slightly tilted

Plot

The city of New Rome faces a duel between Cesare Catilina, a brilliant artist who advocates for a utopian future, and the greedy mayor Franklin Cicero. Between them is Julia Cicero, whose loyalty is divided between her father and her beloved. Francis Ford Coppola wrote the screenplay in the early 1980s, but the film was shelved in part due to his financial debts. Pre-production finally began in 2001 after 30 hours of second unit filming and table readings with Paul Newman, Uma Thurman, Robert De Niro, James Gandolfini, Nicolas Cage, Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe, Edie Falco and Kevin Spacey, but the project was scrapped after of the 9/11 attacks, because the script scene (page 166) "predicted" attacks. Coppola abandoned the project entirely in 2007 and did not begin development again until 2019. The security footage of Cicero entering Caesars office should be two different cameras as indicated by the small text in the upper left corner. Hamilton Crassus III: What do you think of this skeleton I have?.

all great themes

"The ultimate IMAX experience" the film version features a live actor asking questions during a taped press conference. Referenced in The John Campea Show: Adam Driver To Lead Francis Ford Coppola's New Film Megalopolis (2022). My Promise Written by Grace VanderWaal Performed by Grace VanderWaal Courtesy of Columbia Records In arrangement with Sony Music Entertainment Produced and orchestrated by Kris Kukul. Spoiler: the Roman Empire has fallen. This movie also failed. Coppola wants to tell us something, but after 140 minutes we’re not sure what. The themes (yes, plural, too many) are actually interesting: creation/destruction, utopia, leaders, democracy, moral corruption, the future, civilizations…

Or at least storytelling

But somehow they fail to materialize into a coherent story. It starts off very shallow, with awful dialogue and characters we don’t care about. How to make Aubrey Plaza one-dimensional? The entire cast is criminally underutilized. Adam Driver isn’t bad, but this could have been something big. Lots of missed opportunities here. Don’t even get me started on LaBeouf.

She is so stunning

The only person who manages to add some oomph is the enchanting Kathryn Hunter. Strangely, there were scenes that looked and felt like they were directed by someone fresh out of film school. I was left confused as to how this was Coppola’s film. I also personally didn’t like a lot of stylistic choices: music that sounded like my uncle forgot the radio was on. Costumes that looked like they were stolen from Babylon. And don’t even get me started on Jon Voights’ darts. What I liked was the vision and the creation of a new city at the end.

Visually it was fantastic

Between the old, something new appeared, but somehow intertwined. More please. In the end, this film has big goals, but unfortunately falls short of them. It’s boring, uninteresting and all over the place. It’s falling apart before your eyes. So in a way…he managed to create a Roman Empire feel…. Check out our list of exciting new films from this year’s film festivals, including Venice, TIFF, the New York Film Festival and more.