Express.co.uk caught the one-off Ultimate IMAX Experience of Francis Ford Coppola’s bold new epic in Hollywood final evening.
Jon Voight and different stars lined the crimson carpet of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre earlier than the particular screening of Megalopolis started with a live-stream interview with The Godfather and Apocalypse Now director.
The Oscar-winning legend behind a few of the biggest movies ever made has had this ardour undertaking within the works for many years.
Only lately did the 85-year-old make the leap by promoting a portion of his California vineyard to self-fund the $120 million sci-fi drama.
Reviews from Cannes earlier this yr had been polarising, however given the preliminary response to a few of his greatest work, we had been filled with anticipation to see what the grasp had cooked up.
Alas, it’s principally horrible.
Megalopolis is ready in an alternate twenty first century the place New York is named New Rome, and loosely adapts the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63BC; an tried coup of the Roman state. Still with us? Adam Driver stars as an architect referred to as Caesar Catilina, who clashes with Giancarlo Esposito’s corrupt mayor Franklyn Cicero, as he plans to rebuild the metropolis as a utopia after a catastrophe.
An spectacular all-star forged together with Aubrey Plaza, Nathalie Emmanuel, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter and Dustin Hoffman act their socks off on this surreal Shakespearean soup of an image. Yet their expertise can’t save what in the end quantities to a pretentious $120 million scholar artwork movie.
From the phrase go, Megalopolis is totally baffling, incoherent, overstuffed and barely resembles something amounting to an precise film. Coppola could pleasure himself in his unimaginable ambition, however the fixed weird visuals and CGI slop quickly develop into tiresome.
As was reported at Cannes, there’s a 20-second or so reside actor phase, the place a person walks in entrance of the particular projection display, units up a microphone and asks the footage of Driver a query at a press convention earlier than wandering off—a primary for Hollywood for certain, however one in every of numerous complicated and meaningless moments. Given the organisation required, we’d be shocked if this reside second is replicated in IMAX cinemas world wide past this one-off Ultimate IMAX Experience we needed to fly Stateside to witness.
The movie’s saving grace that retains it from the bowels of a 1 star ranking isn’t just its forged’s appearing abilities, however the wealthy and elaborate costume design that would effectively get Oscar-nominated, however that’s about it. We felt like we’d simply seen the surreal meanderings of Yorgos Lanthimos, combined with David Lynch at his worst, trying one thing of a Shakespearean Blade Runner.
Had a producer truly honed Coppola in or given this work to a filmmaker like Denis Villeneuve to mould into one thing value placing out, this movie may effectively have had potential. A perplexing disappointment, however one which cinephiles will little question speak about for many years. Get prepared for the inevitable ironic cult screenings within the years to come back.
Megalopolis hits cinemas on September 27, 2024.
https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/1952564/Megalopolis-review-live-actor-Francis-Ford-Coppola