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Great artists need not be great their entire careers—a fact borne out by Francis Ford Coppola, whose 1970s run (The Godfather, The Conversation, The Godfather Part II, Apocalypse Now) is arguably the finest ever, and whose subsequent output has been wildly mixed and contains no additional undisputed masterpieces. Megalopolis, which Coppola has endeavored to make for four decades and which he financed himself, is a stab at recapturing his former glory, full of epic visions and grand themes and gestures. Such ambition, alas, begets a daring saga that boasts far more moments that stumble than soar. It’s a mess that can be admired—but a mess, nonetheless.
Megalopolis, which hits theaters Sept. 27, dreams of a better tomorrow by looking to yesterday, with Coppola mining the past—Art Deco and German Expressionism, archaic car radios and handwritten letters, and iris shots, canted angles, split screens, and painterly set backgrounds—in an attempt to envision the future. It’s a noble effort, yet one that doesn’t work, as his marriage of the old and the new (including florid animation and CGI effects) is ungainly and often unsightly, his frame awash in glittering golden hues, opulent set design, and outlandish overlapping imagery that turn the proceedings garish and Neil Breen-grade affected.
From a purely aesthetic standpoint, Coppola’s first feature since 2011’s Twixt is a sloppy hodgepodge marked by the occasional gorgeous sight (such as two lovers kissing in death-defying fashion on steel beams suspended over a metropolis) and a cornucopia of clunky compositions that strain futilely for splendor.
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