Megalopolis (2024)

Starring: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Dustin Hoffman, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Chloe Fineman, and James Remar
Grade: A+

I never would have thought the villainous statement of “Revenge tastes best while wearing a dress” would come from Shia LaBeouf in drag, but this is just a sliver of the insanity that is Megalopolis.

Summary

Narrated by Fundi Romaine (Fishburne), it is said that our American republic is not all that different from Old Rome. As the question is written in stone, “Can we preserve our past and all its wondrous heritage? Or will we too fall victim, like Old Rome, to the insatiable appetite for power of a few men”.

In the third millennium in the 21st Century in what is now New Rome, architect Cesar Catilina (Driver) steps out the window ledge of a skyscraper. Before stepping off it, he shows off his ability to stop time by literally yelling, “Time, stop!”. Despite life moving at such a rapid pace, it stands still for Cesar, and he leans forward into the air, though not falling off the building somehow. Moving back to a normal standing position, he snaps his fingers, and time starts moving again.

Fundi narrates again saying, “I sing of Colossus, and the history of man. Let us go wither the omens of the Gods and the inequity of our enemies calls us. The die is now cast.”

The club scene in New Rome is crazy. There, we see all the inhabitants such as Julia Cicero (Emmanuel), Clodia Pulcher (Fineman), and Clodio Pulcher (LaBeouf) partying. Julia and Clodia even do some cocaine and kiss a little bit. Julia and Clodia are placed on a white horse at some point. Clodio tries to playfully bite Julia’s leg, but Julia pushes him away. Following this, they all go outside. Turns out, it’s in the middle of the day. Clodia wants to keep the ball rolling and her, her sisters, and Clodio get into their car. Julia wants to go with, but Commissioner Stanley Hart (D.B. Sweeney) tells her to come with, as he works with her father and Mayor of New Rome Franklyn Cicero (Esposito). Clodio tries to flirt with Julia, but she doesn’t entertain it and enters Stanley’s car. Right away, she asks Stanley if he’s mad or is planning on telling her dad, but he doesn’t answer. He just drives off. Back at the house, Cicero reads the newspaper while a soundbite from the television details Cicero’s financial problems being so massive that only a federal bailout can solve them. Just then, Cicero opens the paper to a story headlined by a shocking naked picture of Julia. In the city, Stanley is stopped by a construction site because they are about to demolish a building. They wait on Cesar’s words, as the Design Authority is run by him as the lead architect and chairman of the company. He tells them to go through with it, and they do. Mid-explosion, Cesar says, “Wait”. Time stops in this moment, but Julia watches and is unaffected by the time-stop move. She watches in shock. Next, he simply says, “Go”, and the rest of the building crumbles. Stanley gets out of the car and tells Cesar he’s gone too far, but one of Cesar’s guys tells Stanley that the site is under Design Authority jurisdiction. Stanely questions what will happen if he oversteps his mandate, to which Cesar simply comments, “We’ll apologize”. Stanley can’t believe this and mentions Cicero will be pissed. Back at City Hall, Cicero is doing a speech outside on the steps with Jason Zanderz (Schwartzman) by his side.

In the news, it is said that Cicero’s poll numbers have continued to drop. At the same time, there’s a news story of blueblood from the Crassus Family in Cesar winning a Nobel Prize for the invention of miracle building material, the Megalon. Fundi continues by asking, “When does an empire die? Does it collapse in one terrible moment? No, but there comes a time when its people no longer believe in it”. This is when an empire begins to die. While Cesar is driven back home by Fundi, who is his driver and assistant, the television in the car talks about how Cicero has inherited a bad fiscal situation, so now he’s being blamed for the firing of teachers, police, and the like. The car phone rings. On behalf of the Design Authority Office, Fundi answers, and someone wants to talk to Cesar immediately. Fundi tells her to hold. Next, he gets Cesar’s attention by pointing to the television because the person on the phone is the same TV presenter on the program he’s watching, Wow Platinum (Plaza). Her show is The Money Bunny. Cesar rolls his eyes and shakes his head to Fundi because he has no interest in speaking to her. At the same time, Platinum speaks on the show about how Crassus National is down seven points. Fundi takes the hint and tells Platinum that Cesar is unavailable, even though she knows he’s there. He hangs up.

Debt – Some great families were utterly penniless

Cesar added to his side history’s richest man, Cesar’s uncle Hamilton Crassus III (Voight). Crassus shows up to supports Cesar’s vision of New Rome at a presentation in the rafters of some building with media present. This annoys Cesar’s biggest rival in Cicero who shows up with his supporters, including his fixer Nush Berman (Hoffman). Also, there is Julia and Wow Platinum who is there on behalf of her television show. Talking to her audience at home, she details how they are all waiting above this model of a city over the Design Authority’s newly demolished site, “which everyone is now claiming as their own”. Just as Crassus shows up, we cut to a sit-down interview Platinum had with Crassus sometime before. While Crassus asks her to turn the cameras off so they can have some fun, Platinum asks what it’s like being rich. As his net worth climbs on camera every second, with it being tracked under the graphic and hitting past the $183 billion mark, Crassus says he can scare people being this rich. Clodio comes with Crassus, and Crassus calls him gay. Clodio corrects him and says that Crassus is thinking of his sisters. Choosing to pick the worst time to have this conversation, Crassus confronts Clodio about the rumor of him having sex with his sisters. He says to stop it if it’s true, but Clodio passes it off as just rumors. Annoyed, Crassus reminds Clodio he could be the next male heir, to which Clodio responds, “Clodio Crassus Pulcher III”. Crassus tries to tell him that running a bank is no joke, but Clodio jokingly finishes the sentence for him because Crassus has said this plenty of times before. Crassus just wants Clodio to protect their family’s name, but the wild child that Clodio is makes a scene by running and jumping onto the scaffolding. Julia can’t help but laugh seeing it. Crassus awkwardly greets Platinum and then goes the opposite way. Cicero uses this opportunity to make a speech about how the heartbeat of their golden city is on a hill and to envision what it could be. With this, they unveil the model of a fun casino, the latest in electronic gambling. The crowd there starts booing, and Julia doesn’t look impressed either. Still, Nush adds how there aren’t any construction delays of any kind, or troubles from the unions or the waterfront because of Cicero’s work.

Clodio interrupts by messing around again, and all the professionals in the room give him death stares while the bystanders laugh. Suddenly, Cesar shows up and commands the attention of everyone in the room. He jokes around a bit and quotes Hamlet, prompting a smug Cicero to ask Nush what they should do. Nush laughs and tells him to wait it out. Eventually, Cesar comments how he’s the chairman of the Design Authority, so his jurisdiction covers parks, fairs, and the like. He stops for a moment to tell the reporter to not take a picture of Cicero’s model. While Julia turns down Clodio’s offer to go out with him, Cesar continues his speech about how they’ve already issued the necessary bonds to develop the site he has in mind. On her show, Platinum talks about how Cicero’s presentation for the top officials in the city has become a battle for their attention, with Cesar’s appearance complicating things. She mentions aloud how Cesar denied her request for a comment to get his attention, but he doesn’t hear her. Cesar goes on about how he cleared this site to create something to inspire people, but Cicero wonders when he ever cared about people. Bypassing this, Cesar details his plan. It’s to create a city people can dream about. Cicero argues that people don’t need dreams. They need the basics like teachers, sanitation, and jobs. Cesar counters that the “need” is to create something that lives on after a city fair. This is why Cesar’s Megalopolis will be built entirely out of Megalon, which is imperishable. Nush thinks the Megalon is unsafe and argues the need for concrete and steel instead. Moving on, Cesar tells everyone to imagine today’s society, a branch of civilization about to reach a dead-end. He talks about how “Humanity as an old tree with one misguided branch called “civilization” going nowhere”. After Cesar throws his pencil to make this point, Cicero tells him that they aren’t here to discuss trees. People need help, and they need it now. Ever the forward thinker, Cesar tells him to not let the now destroy the forever.

Cicero keeps on bringing up people now, but Cesar doesn’t see why they can’t talk about people’s future. Cesar wonders why there is always time to convince the people to use money they don’t have, to buy things they don’t need, and to imitate people they don’t like. Finishing his point, he calls Cicero the “chief slumlord, and the mayor of the city of nothing”. In front of everyone, Cicero threatens to attack Cesar if he says this again. While everyone tries to calm things down, Cicero gets close to Cesar’s ear and asks if Cesar was this cool and collected when he poisoned his wife and her body disappeared, or if his miracle method in Megalon is made from her body. Doubling down, he asks if the former Sunny Hope (Cesar’s deceased wife) is a plastic girder or wall panel somewhere. He wants to know what really happened to Cesar’s wife. Cesar points out how Cicero was the prosecuting DA and he knows Cesar was acquitted. Moving past this, he calls him a slumlord again. This incenses Cicero, and he has to be pulled away by his entourage while everyone takes pictures of both men. Fundi continues with the narration talk about how the great ladies of Rome “obsessed over fashion while having intimate dealings with the scum of the gladiatorial shows, poisoners, and blackmailers”. At one of the fashion shows, Julia tells Clodia how she wants to take down Cesar for being mean to her father. Clodia suggests they write him a poison-pen letter because she’s good at them. Julia agrees and starts drawing mean pictures of him on the newspaper he’s on. Clodia encourages it, though she admits he still looks hot. Julia has to remind Clodia that Cesar is her cousin, which Clodio overhears and gets pissed. Flirting, Clodia tells Julia that she’s bad, and they kiss. One of the models comes down the runway, and Clodio grabs her hand and walks with her. When he gets near Julia, he snatches the newspaper from her hand in anger. Julia tells Clodia that she hates her brother, but so does she. Just then, Clodio walks the model to the end of the runway and hypes her up. She signals for him to call her, and he promises he will.

That night, Cesar gets home to find Platinum standing still in a yoga-like manner while the TV in the background plays her interview with Crassus on The Money Bunny. Cesar and Platinum have an on/off relationship. Eventually, Platinum turns off her timer and gets mad at Cesar for having no concept of time. He responds by telling her to turn herself off, meaning her show. Changing the subject, she brings up how she knows he was in that car when she called him. He doesn’t deny it, but his reasoning is that he wanted to wait until he had good news to share, pointing out the newspapers that talk about his recent successes and the discussions for Megalopolis beginning. She doesn’t care and kicks the newspapers away, adding that it means a lot more to him than she does. Still, he’s excited that the city is finally talking about it. Really, it’s the need to talk about it for which he’s excited about, seeing it as urgent as air and water. His train of thought is stopped once he sees how much of a mess the room is in, though Platinum downplays it while drinking wine. He joins her on the bed and takes a pill. Platinum flirts with him but says she wants to be more than just his mistress. She wants to be one-half of a power couple. He asks what half, to which she says whatever half he’s willing to put his foot on. As the two start getting intimate, Platinum comments that her career is beginning to slump, her ratings are down, and she needs more. She tells Cesar she loves him, but he is weary. He responds, “Never marry for love”. He gets a vision of his former wife calling out his name. Next, Platinum gets off him, Cesar leaves, and Platinum turns the TV back on to watch her interview with Crassus. In it, Crassus asks Platinum if she is trying to deflect from his amorous behavior. She denies and asks if there is anything he doesn’t have. He just stares at her and comments, “There certainly is”. The next day, Julia goes to Cesar’s office. The receptionist asks her what she wants to speak to him about, and she tells her it’s about the future of the world. The receptionist calls to tell Cesar that a sixth grader is there to see him because she was in the class that got out of gym because of his speech to them.

He gets the call while he’s with a planner and remembers the girl, so he lets her up. Looking at the plans with the man, Cesar suggests of the possibility of whatever connects power also stores it, and the guy likes it and leaves to see what he can do with it. Fundi then tells Cesar that his visitor isn’t what he expects. Cesar sits down, and Julia is let in, so he realizes she is the one posing as a sixth grader. How the receptionist was fooled into believing this is beyond me. Julia brings up the letter she sent last night, but she calls it childish and wants it back before he reads it. For the record, it was the one she made with Clodia. He knows which letter it is but decides to mess with her by asking which envelope it is until he gets to it. Once she points it out to him, he tells her that he did already read it and it was childish. Julia admits she had help and how they weren’t in their right minds. Cesar tells her it was witty, albeit in a cruel and insulting way. Julia points out the way he treats Cicero is cruel and insulting too. Cesar knows who she is and gives her credit for defending her father but refers to her as “delinquent”. Still, she wants to turn over a new leaf and doesn’t want him to mess with her. He points out how she’s the one who came in disguise. Next, Julia brings up how she finished a year of medical school but dropped out. She adds that her love of science “bumped up against a brick wall of intellectual vigor on the subject of jellyfish”. Apparently, their mesoglea material is a flexible skeleton until encountering something higher, almost spiritual “like the Megalon”. She messes with one of Cesar’s models when she says this, prompting Fundi to fix it. As Cesar grows increasingly disinterested in the conversation, Julia sees his Nobel Prize encased in glass, along with his expired medication on the ground. Cesar changes the subject to ask about Cicero’s take on her behavior. She counters by saying that anytime someone brings up people living like she does, her father is shocked. Cesar halfheartedly questions what’s shocking about her, to which she states how she wants to be the Statue of Liberty.

Cesar brings up how the gossip columns talk about her, but she can’t believe he actually reads those. He admits he does it to waste time. She walks across the room and finds all the empty liquor bottles on the ground. Then, she mentions how she was reading about him last night and how he stated, “In order to understand time, consciousness, courage, you must identify it in yourself”. At this point though, he’s eating and kind of ignoring her. Seeing this, Julia assumes he was a rude and spoiled child. He calls her one currently. After this, he asks her if she still has her microscope from medical school. She doesn’t. When she dropped out, she sold it to buy drugs, specifically psilocybin. Cesar questions who supports her lifestyle now and if it’s “Daddy”, which angers her. She is close to storming off, but Cesar tells her to come back while he laughs. He wonders what the point of her visit was anyway, and she explains how she was trying to be a go-between and wants to help him. Plus, she wants to learn from him. Cesar questions if she thinks her one year of medical school entitles her to the riches of his “Emersonian mind’. She can’t believe he said this, but he’s dead serious. She assumes Cesar thinks she’s nothing or a simple socialite, but he’s honest in admitting that he only reserves his time for people who can think about science, literature, architecture, and art. Cesar notes that Julia thinks he’s cruel, selfish, and unfeeling, but he admits he is. He works without caring what happens to either of them. He mocks her and tells her to “go back to the club”, bare it all, and to stalk the people she actually enjoys. Julia storms to the door and says she will. Cesar jokingly welcomes her to come back when she has more time. Hearing this, she is reminded how she saw him change the laws of physics with his time-stop move and questions if Cesar doesn’t obey anything, including T-symmetry. This gets Cesar out of his chair to have her confirm what she saw, but she wants Cesar to tell her. Intrigued, he invites her to follow him into a different room. Though she’s the offspring of Cesar’s opposition, Fundi admits to himself privately that he likes Julia.

Cesar takes Julia downstairs to a room where children are playing and there’s a series of models on a platform in the middle of the room. She’s confused. He tells her to walk into the future with her eyes closed and to dictate what she sees. Julia walks into the model with her eyes closed. She starts to get visions of a golden city, and she speaks aloud at how she sees everyone in their neighborhood creating and learning together perfecting body and mind, and they’re celebrating. She has a vision of her touching a tree and flowers booming immediately from her touch, along with a rain shower that lands just on her. She talks about the people she sees created shelter for the rain. Cesar comments that it’s a perfect school-city for its people, how it will grow along with them, “just like great cities have always done”. Julia asks what he’s going to do about those standing in the way, those who like the city the way it is. When Cesar asks if she’s talking about her father, she comes out of the trance and back to reality. Following this, there is a parade in the city, and Cicero is walking alongside Julia. This is when Julia decides to tell him that she’s working for Cesar. He can’t believe it. He calls Julia a traitor and Cesar a megalomaniac. Cicero adds that he lures beautiful girls with his “bullshit genius, he destroys innocence, loveliness, and asks of them what Pygmalion asked of marble”. She defends Cesar and says he’s not as evil as Cicero thinks and how there is something magical about him. Just then, the two are stopped by the police for a moment to let Cesar’s car pass through the road and Cicero is furious. He tells Jason that he wants Cesar out of his life, but Julia defends him again and mentions that Cesar made sure she was there on time. Cicero gets even angrier hearing that Cesar dropped her off there but is told he has to smile for the parade, so he fights to put one on for the people. Still, the crowd boos him. Nearby, some of the band members for the parade stand next to a building and read that a Soviet satellite is falling out of orbit in space and its nuclear fuel “will scatter harmlessly over Labrador”. One of the band members Huey (Bailey Coppola) is distracted by Claudine (Isabelle Kusman) and Claudette (Madeleine Gardella) calling him over, as they sit on top of a car, so he drops his instrument and goes over to them. Clodio introduces himself to Huey and invites him in the car, so he goes with them.

The band member who was reading the paper asks the others where Huey went. When they point out the direction, the guy says they should go the opposite direction.

It looks like they aren’t huge fans of Huey.

At night, Cesar is alone in his office getting visions of his deceased wife while he sketches. In the Cicero home, Julia secretly reviews the files of Cesar’s murder case when Cicero was the DA. She looks through old newspaper headlines that cover details of the case and finds one that says the wife was poisoned by an insulin overdose. Fundi drives Cesar through the streets of New Rome and asks if he wants to go uptown, downtown, heaven, or hell. Cesar chooses “Purgatory”. Fundi says they have time for Atlantic City, and Cesar responds by saying they always have time, “even if I don’t understand it”. In another car somewhere in the city, a driver discusses with Julia how spying is unethical, but Julia explains that it’s research, not spying. Julia questions aloud how it was possible for Cesar’s wife’s body to completely vanish while she follows Cesar. In a limo, Clodio sees Julia and talks to himself about how much he loves her, even getting a little emotional. In Cesar’s car, Fundi rambles about how you can’t cheat or beat time, nor touch it, taste it, see it, or smell it. Time stops for nobody. Clodio manages to drive by Cesar’s car too and takes pictures of him. Fundi notices they are being followed and maneuvers out of there and into the fog. They drive by hookers and Cesar gets a vision of a statue of a soldier holding a sword before the statue drops the weapon and leans up against a building, exhausted. They continue to drive, and Cesar gets another vision of a statue laying on the ground chained up. Next, there’s another statue in a sitting position. It tears a stone tablet in half and drops it, almost hitting their car when they drive by. Cesar has Fundi stop the car near a flower shop to buy flowers, and Julia takes note of this and questions who they are for. Fundi then drives him to a different building, and the guard inside turns off the laser security for him. Fundi says that his heart breaks for Cesar while he watches him go inside. Julia follows Cesar to see what’s going on. Cesar goes to a special room with the flowers.

Inside it, there is a room with nurses, a woman playing the harp, and Sunny Hope lying on the bed. Cesar tends to her bedside. Julia sneaks into the room, which is where we see the reality of the situation. There is no one inside it. It’s just Cesar imagining this fantasy. She realizes Cesar still loves her and runs back to the car. Once she’s gone, Cesar imagines kissing Sunny. By himself, Fundi mentions the mysteries of the human heart and how it’s hard for him to understand as a historian, which may reveal that he’s keeping records of what’s happening. Sometime later, Cesar takes Julia to the top of a building where there is an outstretched platform they can stand on to see the city. The gears are visible through the glass of the platform. Julia looks through binoculars at the city while Cesar looks through some device with red glass to look through. She motions in a certain direction and questions what will go there, and he answers that there will be a small stadium with a roof like gold tissue. Cesar uses a telescope to look through his device while Julia asks more about his dream for Megalopolis. Of all the institutions his supposed utopia will preserve, she wants to know what the most important ones are for him. Surprisingly, it’s marriage. Fundi continues with his narration about how the wind blows across the Aegean, “bringing what the ancients learned from their ancients, the poetry of Sappho”. As Cesar looks off into the distance with his telescope and looks through a yellow tinted part of the device, Julia mentions a quote about what is the supreme sight on Earth and how she considers the one you love to be the best example. As time passes, Platinum marries Crassus.

Colosseum – Bread and Circuses

“Where stands the colosseum, so stands Rome. When the Colosseum falls, then Rome falls too. And when Rome falls, the world falls with it”.

Fundi is talking about Madison Square Garden in this case, as the wedding reception of Platinum and Crassus is being held there. Outside of MSG, Platinum reveals her wedding gift to Crassus and all the paparazzi outside. It’s a statue of Crassus with the statement on the stand of it being, “Greed is but a word. Jealous men inflict upon the ambitious”. Soon after, Clodia, Claudine, Claudette, and Clodio in drag appear at the event. They are the richest kids in the world, and the soundbite from the news says that the rumor is they’re all sleeping with each other as well. Julia gets a ride from the police there and then waits outside for Cesar’s arrival. He gets out of his car finishing a drink. He turns and sees protesters lined up complaining about Megalopolis. A bit drunk, he gets questions from reporters regarding Megalon and how safe it is. He jokes that it’s not safe and we all should run before explaining he’s joking. One reporter asks Julia how she feels about Cicero bankrupting the city, but she shuts it down to say she’s not here to represent the mayor. Someone asks if she still prefers girls, but Cesar butts in and answers, “Who doesn’t prefer girls?”. Just the sight of the two angers Clodio who’s hanging out with Huey, who seems to have joined them. Teen popstar Vesta Sweetwater (Grace VanderWaal) shows up to the event and confirms that she’s wearing the first ever dress made from Megalon. It’s designed by Cesar himself. She reveals it and it makes her look nearly invisible. Cesar explains to the reporters how “millions of tiny cell cameras transmit what they see through to the other side”. As Cicero gets there and gets booed by everyone, Huey tries to sell his military uniform off to random people. Nush can’t believe it when he walks by and calls him a disgrace to the people he’s walking with. The MC begins the reception and thanks Crassus Bank for saving the city from debt. Crassus and Platinum sit on separate couches out in the open and relax. Clodio goes up to Crassus and asks if he got a prenuptial agreement before he married her, but Crassus is drunk and too confused over Clodio’s appearance.

Clodio passes it off as a fraternity prank and asks again if he got a prenup. He confirms that he does. Clodio still questions why he married her, and Crassus explains that she’s a gift to himself. Apparently, she cures his headaches and keeps him young, adding that he might live forever. Once he leaves, Clodio sees Cesar enter and sarcastically claps for him. Cesar congratulates Crassus and makes a toast to the both of them and how they represent the big three: economics, journalism, and sex appeal. Nush tells one of the guys from the entourage that they say the only thing bigger than Crassus’s bank account is his prick. Cesar kisses his mother Constance (Shire) and sits down next to her. Constance tells Cesar that alligators have the right idea. They eat their young. Julia is observing the whole family at the dinner table at this point. Clodia asks Platinum how she got her name and if it’s Greek, but she says she picked it up at Penn Station on her way to an employment agency, using the last line as a dig to the unemployed kids. Cesar excuses himself by kissing Constance on the head and then aggressively pushing his seat in at the table. The MC announces reigning champion Gaius Metalus who races around the arena to the cheers of the crowd. Privately, Julia shows Clodia the meds Cesar takes, and she knows immediately they are “byfavo remimazolam”. Julia approaches Cesar to see what he’s doing, but he tells her to knock it off. Once he’s out of the office and cuts loose, he considers her off the clock and tells Julia to have fun. Changing the subject, she asks him directly why he pretends to be bad. Cesar explains that if you pretend to be good, the world won’t take you seriously. Before he finishes his statement of what happens when you pretend to be bad, he takes his meds and walks off. She finishes the statement to herself and thinks they will kill him. In the center of MSG, there are three separate wrestling matches going on, and Crassus is excited to see Gargantua and Amazonia there.

Meanwhile, Leah Arpelles from high school newspaper Dingbat News asks Julia if it’s better to look good or smell good, as if this is riveting journalism. Julia answers both. Leah asks if she thinks Cesar is sexy, and Julia walks around it. Leah admits she’s jealous. At the same time, Clodio signs his name on actual money and throws it into a crowd. Leah asks when Julia smoked her first joint, but she lies and says never, and Leah follows it up wondering why she is working for Cesar knowing Cicero hates him. Is Cesar her boss or her boyfriend? For some reason, this is hard for Julia to answer even though she has never broached the subject with Cesar. While this goes on, Cesar gets more intoxicated. Eventually, Julia takes note of Cesar’s drunk and stoned state at 10:17PM. She notes how Cesar doesn’t know who he is at the moment and questions if it’s a moment of grace for him. Cicero sees Cesar and Julia from the balcony and asks his wife if the two are together. She dispels this. Cicero calls Cesar a womanizer, but she thinks this is an awful word (“As if the woman had nothing to do with it”). While the trapeze artists do their thing, a drunk Cesar hears words in his head about how if you leap into the unknown, you prove that you are free. In his head, he says it over and over again. He drops a glass liquor bottle on the ground and breaks it. Then, it comes back together again as if it was never broken. The statements “Follow me, I’ll show you” and “But if it’s our mind that can invent gods, and if from them flows such power, why can’t we apply that power directly?” ring in his head as he wanders out of the reception. Julia finds him in the hallway, and they try to do the invisible rope trick, with her trying to pull him back towards her. However, it’s not a joke. They both are tugging as if the rope is actually there. Getting near the door, Cesar imagines an invisible knife, cuts the rope, and falls. He imagines the statements over and over again, and it’s mixed in with the trapeze artists and clowns. Clodio and Huey go into the production room and Clodio pays the technical director to play a certain video for his “grand finale”. Huey threatens the guy to make it happen and pays him right after. Clodio and Huey celebrate and laugh manically in the hallway, with Clodio telling Julia to enjoy the show before they run away.

Vesta

“The vestal virgins assured the success and sanctity of ancient Rome. Dedicated to Vesta, goddess of the hearth, whom Ovid calls ‘custos flammai’, or ‘keeper of the flame”.

The MC announces Vesta to the public as a virgin, and Cicero happily tells his wife that Vesta took the “Pure Love Pledge”. Overhearing this, Julia scoffs. While Clodio grabs his sisters and they all start messing around with each other, Vesta is brought down on a moon set piece and sings about purity. Other CGI replications of her singing set up all around the arena, and the MC asks the crowd to look into their own heart and to “give generously to support her virgin pledge”. Julia can’t believe what she’s seeing and leaves. Still, the wealthy attendees start donating hundreds of thousands of dollars on the spot, with them holding up QR codes to signify it. The MC goes on about Vesta wanting to marry as a virgin and how their money will help the city. They even get to the $100 million mark on account of Nush. The song finishes as Vesta is lifted again on the set piece. Her Megalon dress turns her invisible to which she excitedly exclaims to the audience, “You can see right through me!”. Then, a video is shown on the screen of a camera busting into the bedroom of Cesar and he’s fucking Vesta. This is what Clodio set up. The audience and Julia are shocked, Clodio laughs, and Constance is disappointed. Elsewhere, Cesar is still messed up beyond belief and thinks while he physically shakes, “Rather than just design the form or shape of an object, you can actually design at the cellular level”. The crowd members start to riot, so Cicero takes the mic and trashes Cesar and his character. On the staircase, Cesar bumps into someone and they punch him. They continue to fight until Cesar takes him out. Still in the arena, Cicero goes on and on about Cesar’s audacity, how he’s affecting the people, and how there’s no man that exists that doesn’t hate him. Cesar is still somewhere and takes more of his meds before falling on the ground. Cicero calls for Cesar to step down as Platinum leaves the building. In the crowd, Clodio tells Huey that anyone can own this city.

As the rioters destroy Vesta’s set and still boo Cicero, one thing is for sure: New Rome’s next age and the dream of Megalopolis will not be easy to come by.

My Thoughts:

Filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola originally conceived the basic idea for Megalopolis in 1977. Nearly fifty years later, he was finally able to see his vision and ode to maximalist cinema come to fruition in an ambitious, complex, bold, garish, and all-around wacky production that is nothing like you have seen before. Though it shows elements of Metropolis, Caligula, hundreds of books and articles, and years of historical research to create the skeleton of the story, Megalopolis is entirely its own thing, an artistic experience that transcends traditional mainstream film in a courageous piece of art about political turmoil, decadence, hedonism, love and its ties to inspiration, making dreams a reality, art and its relation to freedom and vice versa, and hope. In a period of cinema where people are fearful in their attempts to shoot for the moon due to studio interference or public backlash, Coppola funded his own project and was willing to go for broke just to see his science fiction opus of madness come to light, creating a legacy-defining epic that is nearly incoherent but also brilliant and chaotically entertaining. Never boring and always transfixing, the fascinating Megalopolis will not be enjoyed by everyone, but everyone should watch it to see what film can be if the artist is left to their own devices to create what they want to create. Some may see this lack of a filter as the reason why Coppola’s movie failed, but it’s incredible vision and commitment to its outrageousness is so compelling in its bizarre story and characters that I can’t help but see nothing else than one of the best movies of 2024.

Maybe these passion projects are a weak spot for me because seeing an artist finally get to accomplish what he or she has wanted to do for years is a triumph we can all resonate with, but there is a difference between giving deserved credit to the filmmaker for their work and just being happy for them. With Megalopolis, this was an instance of both being true, as it really was a mesmerizing feature. There are so many ideas, thoughts, and statements within the screenplay that bewilder with each succeeding minute while others bring the viewer deeper into the psyche, personal philosophies, and theories Coppola may have found in his research of the Catilinarian conspiracy of 63 BC and how it pertains to now, and with the protagonist in Cesar Catilina, who has traces of many Roman figures of history in his DNA along with a crop of other architects and visionaries. Cesar is one of the most complex main characters in recent memory. Far from a perfect man, Cesar cares little about the people around him or himself. He’s not necessarily a savage towards his contemporaries but does not waste his time with anyone who can’t engage with him on his intellectual wavelength or “Emersonian mind” he knows he has. He does see a lot of the people he comes across as beneath him, and he’s not shy about it. Even so, he’s not a bad person. It’s just that someone who dares to go against the grain can be understood as such because of public perception. Once enough is believed about a person whether it’s true or not, it becomes real to the public. No amount of arguing or evidence will change the court of public opinion. Instead of flipping out over accusations or takedowns of his personal character by people like Cicero, Cesar accepts the public perception of him being this wealthy, egotistical architect who is only demolishing buildings just to do so rather than his real ultimate goal of creating something bigger for future generations. He takes on this negative persona because “If you pretend to be good, the world won’t take you seriously”. Essentially, the only way people will pay attention to you and your ideals is if you exist as a point of contention. It forces them to talk about you and your ideals because negativity has proven to bring back attention.

The current political climate is proof of this, which is why Cesar’s point to Julia while being semi-intoxicated is not only compelling but rather a fair argument with too much evidence to support it. We know Cesar isn’t a tyrant or has goals of being one. His personality can just be off-putting for people who aren’t prepared or willing to engage with someone who has a difference in opinion. Additionally, he doesn’t want to waste time with people he sees as timewasters, yet another fair point that is looked at as terrible because of his lack of sugar-coating in delivering this message. Mentally, Cesar is past the human form and doesn’t care to relate to others or be a happy-go-lucky public figure running for office. No, he has no desire for anything other than his work, which will benefit humanity. His work not being appreciated while he lives doesn’t matter to him. He just desires the time to pull it off, which is why he’s in shambles when Wow Platinum has the bank freeze his funds after the assassination attempt. Anyone who doesn’t understand Cesar’s vision for the bigger picture looks at him like a maniac with ulterior motives or a straight up asshole. On the other hand, those who do take a deep dive into his mind and get to see Cesar behind closed doors like Julia, realize Cesar is who he says he is. He’s not the “guiltiest man unhanged” as Cicero calls him. He’s a serious visionary. Others are focused on the present, fixing things temporarily to satisfy the masses as quickly as possible and live day-to-day. It’s like Cicero’s big plan of building a casino in New Rome. Sure, it would boost the economy and create jobs, but what about tens and even hundreds of years down the line? Why not use all your resources with this line of thinking in mind, as the potential benefit would be astronomical to society? Cesar can’t relate to short-term thinking. It’s too close-minded, no matter the benefits that even he could enjoy during his time on Earth. Cesar is fixated earnestly and wholeheartedly on the future of society because he knows how vital it will be to the growth and protection of New Rome, and he’s willing to look like a crazy person to his devoted section of haters due to his creation and support of Megalon.

It’s the problem of being a forward thinker in a society that refuses to allow such dreams since everyone only worries about themselves and their surroundings in the present. Most artists, visionaries, and dreamers ahead of their time aren’t appreciated during their lives. People don’t realize how good they had it until the creator is gone. It’s not until well after do people come around and figure out the mastery that existed in the first place but was thrown to the side for a myriad of reasons. It happens in almost every facet of life, especially in entertainment. Cesar and his ideals exist as Coppola’s metaphor for this unfortunate but real problem, as he too will fall victim to this with the production of Megalopolis, just like Cesar does with his utopia Megalopolis. Though it will take time, Coppola knows the retrospectives will look back at this forgotten piece of cinema and eventually acknowledge the genius that exists in this epic. He was willing to risk it all in making the dream come true. If he’s wrong, he’s willing to accept it because he desperately wanted to make it happen and did. In the case that Coppola is right and he gets his flowers potentially years into the future or even after death, the vindication coming from his contemporaries, critics, and audiences alike will be felt in one way or another. Either way, he will rest easy knowing he tried, and it’s hard not to respect that. Cesar is embodying this on the big screen. In a way, he is Coppola, but he does so while serving the narrative at hand. Just like how Coppola probably knew that this film wasn’t going to be digested by the masses well, it’s as if he has this in mind when writing a majority of the screenplay. Even though we believe in Cesar’s message, there’s a scene after Cicero pleads with him to leave Julia where there’s an interlude from a show called Crosstalk and all the headlines read as sensationalist propaganda made to sway the viewer in a negative direction with “Is Megalon the path to a better life for you and your family, or is it the dream of an eccentric mad scientist that could kill us all?”, “Megalon is from outer space”, “Sex, drugs, and Megalon”, and newspaper reports of “Megalopolis doesn’t fit together” and “Megalon deemed unsafe by expert”. The public isn’t going to get it, but it’s just what the artist has to deal with in pursuit of the vision.

It’s what Coppola dealt with in in real-life and what Cesar Catilina has to deal with in Megalopolis. Cesar will take everything on the chest because serving the greater good is what he wants, and he is confident time will prove him right. Making this utopia happen, knowing it will serve the public well after he’s gone for generations, is what he sees as his destiny. Minutes before Megalopolis opens to the public, Cesar faces an angry mob and doubles down in his speech about how he’s not concerned with his place in history. He is only concerned about “time, consciousness, and courage”. He boils each word down to its bare essentials, with an emphasis on courage being about the beginning of a vital conversation, a great debate about the future. No matter how he sounds to this gathering of people, he encourages them with his words and how they need to talk about the future and how every person in the world needs to take part in the debate. It’s a call to action about how human beings are a miracle who were born with the option of being who they want to be and must. Be fearless in your search and pursuit of your own personal future as well as society’s, even if it is scary. It’s an echoing of Cesar’s early thoughts, “If you leap into the unknown, you prove that you are free”. The option of a great future for all is there, and Cesar is trying to open the minds of millions with why this utopia is so crucial to our evolution and why leaping into this unknown has to happen. It’s the beginning of something beautiful, a future that allows humans to reach their potential. It’s a message that the viewer can take in too, realizing how insignificant the little stuff can be, as the bigger picture should be what we’re focusing our time on. Even so, Cesar comes to the conclusion that there is still so much to accomplish. Is there time to build a noble future for the betterment of humanity? Megalopolis seems to think so, as it ends in a message of hope. However, the real answer is left to the audience in how they will respond to the standing agreement between bitter rivals Cesar and Cicero as they both see how the future is at stake.

For the creators out there looking for hope, Megalopolis also carries this message in its darkest moments. After Cesar comments to Julia that he can only think of four ideas involving addiction, disgrace, scandal and murder, despite the charges being dropped, he talks about losing his power to control time after the ass-kicking he got at Crassus’s wedding reception. As a response, Julia gives him this wonderous and eloquent monologue about how artists can never lose their control of time. It’s something he taught her. It’s not about literally doing it. It’s the work that transcends time (“Painters stopped time, how architecture is frozen music, how dancers combine time and space, how musician rhythmatize it, poets sing it”). Despite Cesar strangely following this up by insisting he didn’t kill his wife, Julia’s words are such a beautiful perspective about art that it stays with you. This is probably why Cesar has to tell himself during his life-saving Megalon surgery that “I will not let time have dominion over my thoughts”. Just because there might be less time in a literal sense, we can’t have it affect our imagination because it limits us as human beings. It’s not easy, which is why Cesar has to remind himself of this mantra, but it’s yet another thing the viewer can latch onto and internalize moving forward. This is why Julia is so important to Cesar, and why it changes him, more than likely echoing Coppola dealing with the recent passing of his wife. As unconventional as the road is to get there, the forbidden love of Cesar and Julia is felt, especially when Cicero and his wife join them for dinner in a tense scene. Cicero criticizes Cesar’s point about being unafraid to jump into the future because there might be something there to be afraid of, but Cesar counters with the fact that there’s nothing to be afraid of if you love or have loved. It’s an unstoppable and unbreakable force. It’s “nothing you can touch, yet it guides every decision we make”. They argue about utopias not having answers and Cesar commenting how this is the point and that it’s more about having the ability to raise the questions. Cicero thinks utopias turn into dystopias, implying they shouldn’t try, which Cesar criticizes as its just accepting the endless conflict they live in.

After the spouses step in, the two start going back and forth with quotes and it’s a game of one-upmanship and it’s amusing. It prompts Cicero to have Julia spout quotes off because it’s a weird talent of hers, and she does three straight of Marcus Aurelius, with each one perfect for the argument at hand. One supports Cicero’s idea but the other two support Cesar’s line of thinking. It’s all rooted in love and how it inspires all three of them to perform certain actions within the narrative, but the movie never forgets its heart amidst the chaos. It’s yet another reason why this the film is special.

The production design as a whole is something else. In trying to make New York City a modern version of the times of the Romans, Coppola bypasses his care of trying to avoid perplexing his audience and goes all-in with his approach. The colorful characters all have larger-than-life, defined personalities, but it’s because the cast acted as if they were all given different directions on how to perform within the tone of the movie. The “creation….destruction” scene is a great example to show the completely different playing fields the actors are on and how it yields hysterical responses at times. It’s like some of them are stage acting rather than movie acting, with Adam Driver being the biggest culprit of it, though it’s clearly intentional. The serious Driver as Cesar is this high society genius who speaks so pretentiously that he’s almost speaking a different language at times while Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum still brings Plaza’s trademark comedic energy that stands out for being somewhat normal. Shia LaBeouf is somewhere in the middle, and it works to maddening and highly entertaining results. With everything else, the way the characters speak is almost poetic and non-sequitur in nature (“It makes me very happy that you came to me ahead of Cesar. A father matters, yes?” – “Always father. Always your faithful daughter”), the haircuts are odd, and the wealthy and the basic dress with this idea in mind of what New Rome is, ancient Roman times updated to fit an original futuristic society while being an imaginative throwback at the same time. Madison Square Garden is the Colosseum, condos and mansions look like kingdoms, and incest is still strangely present but for some reason fits with the world Coppola presents, with the sinisterness of the elite circles still being very present in this future. The cinematography highlights gold and a yellowish tint throughout, representing the decadence of New Rome immaculately, but it is also made to shine even more when Megalopolis itself is realized, or something pertains to its building. It’s the relationship between what gold represents as a precious metal, how the viewer sees it as the purest example of wealth, and how it can also be used for what Cesar sees as the ultimate objective: hope and care for all of mankind moving forward.

Moments like Cesar and Julia standing on the beams for their first kiss or the reveal of Megalopolis itself are magnified by this gold filter beauty.

Also, don’t let anyone confuse you on the intention of Megalopolis. It’s not unintentionally funny. It is funny. They knew what they were doing and were having fun while doing it. Cesar drunkenly explaining how the guy who invented pigs-in-a-blanket should be the winner of the Nobel Prize (and I’m inclined to agree), the contentious relationship between Cesar and his unfeeling mother Constance, the “Pick up my hat” scene, and the hilarious social commentary on the entertainment industry with Vesta were all well-placed moments of humor. When Vesta is revealed to be 23 and not 16 (“Lying little slut”), and the video of her with Cesar was revealed to be doctored and fake, the news report of the pregnancy rate skyrocketing because of her influence and her going through a rebranding phase of a rock star was hilarious. Moreover, this is where Aubrey Plaza lives in Megalopolis. At first, we’re unsure of the direction and tone of the story because Plaza’s performance are that of her comedic persona tuned to a different level to fit the character of Wow Platinum, but it leads to that small but great moment where Platinum stops the elevator her and Julia are on with threatening opening of “Listen bitch…” before she lays down the ground rules of how Crassus, the bank, and Cesar are hers. Furthermore, the “Auntie Wow” sequence between her and Clodio where she details the plan on how to take the bank from Crassus while they have sex was one for the fucking ages. Really, anything involving Shia LaBeouf’s Clodio is ridiculously entertaining. He might be chewing the scenery at times, but it’s an indelible comic performance all the same. The “some kind of genius” as Nush describes him leading an uprising just to fuck with Cesar’s plans for Megalopolis and getting legions of followers, playing to their anger of the building of the city is a great side story and yet another well-written commentary on the current state of American politics. Before one of his speeches, Clodia even talks about how Clodio is succeeding because he has no boundaries, how this makes a political leader, and how he’s also an entertainer. Does that sound familiar?

Adding the perfect storm of no one being happy with the senate and everyone wanting change of some sort, and you have a few catchy sayings like “Power to the people”, “Hail Clodio”, “Pulcher for the culture!”, and “Cesar’s not a pleaser!” and you’re set. All Clodio does is get the angry more riled up by saying what they want to hear like how they are powerful, they’re taking their country back, and basically, fuck everybody (“We’ve waited long enough, no? Fight like hell, or we are going to lose the city!”). The majority fits under Clodio’s categorization of being unwanted, unneeded, and uneducated. If he says what they want to hear, he will get a following. It can be that easy if you have a platform, which is why it’s so dangerous, as we find out. His sequences of inciting riots amongst the people with his speeches plays like a propaganda film. It’s interspliced at times with Cicero’s own speeches, and it’s awesome to watch unfold.

“The gods have decreed that history teach us, all that is needed is a slight push to send our republic toppling, for it is in the power of any daring man to overturn a sickly commonwealth”. Man, Fundi wasn’t kidding when he said this.

The hardest I laughed was Clodio going on about how there’s no one else they can name deserving of alderman during his speech in the park. Someone mentions Cesar’s name, and Clodio demands to know who said it before telling the guy to shut the fuck up, resulting in an immediate silence from his crowd (“Will no one rid me of this fucking cousin?”). It’s GOLD!

For all the hackneyed ideas and temporary illusions that did work like Cesar imagining Sunny Hope still alive and kissing a pillow to show how broken he is regarding this part of his life, Cesar being in an underwater case and Julia trying to break him out to foreshadow her plight in helping him, the seconds-long vision Julia has seeing Cicero’s office in sand and his desk lopsided to represent the sinking ship of despair he’s in, you have other stuff that doesn’t work, like Cicero’s bad dream that he sees as omen. It’s that of a cloud that looks like a hand grabbing the moon. His wife counters with “Only those in a nightmare are capable of praising the moonlight”, but I just flat-out disagree with this notion. The stuff with the CGI statues was a total head-scratcher too. It may have served a purpose in Coppola’s head, but it was confusing in practice. Plus, it was too fantastical for a movie like this, and that’s saying something. Furthermore, the caption cards were god-awful. There’s no reason why they couldn’t just let Laurence Fishburne narrate without them. With them, it made these singular moments present itself like a miniseries in the style of a chapter book. It looked very cheap. As great as Talia Shire was in spurts as Constance, the exchange she has with Cesar about Julia started off very fun but got really weird. She shows her toughness by saying without Julia’s love, Cesar is going to be a has-been and a fake like his father, and it’s another great example in presenting their odd relationship to the audience. However, then she randomly brings up string theory, how there might be 11 dimensions, and how interesting it all is. It’s almost as if she’s sickly, but this isn’t a subject that’s ever broached, so we can’t assume that because she was perfectly fine up until this point. Following their back and forth about how Cesar didn’t mention her name in his Nobel Prize speech, he apologizes by kissing her hand, but she flips out and accuses him of hurting her and is dead serious. What the fuck was that about? Everyone in the room is confused, there is no follow up to it, and the viewer is only led to question if there was some sort of metaphorical meaning to it or if it was just weird writing that didn’t make any sense.

The cartoonish, circular, zoomed-in close up on certain characters like when Cesar and Cicero are standing across from each other was strange too, as was the interpretative dance with four people that start out as rocks in the ocean, but it’s all par for the course really. Once you settle in and kind of accept the madness, you just start going with it. Another missed opportunity was not utilizing Dustin Hoffman or Jason Schwartzman more or having them play such lower-level roles, especially Hoffman. It’s nice to know Jon Voight and Talia Shire still have it though!

There’s just so much to unpack during this runtime. The process of creating Megalopolis highlighted by a vague montage of Cesar working on it with his team is engrossing, the idea of Megalon “fusing all forces” and its subsequent lack of detail in regards to how it functions makes it cool (“…has no delineation, knows no boundaries, Megalon will activate some of the signals that will express genes, subatomic particles atoms, molecules, human connection”), and the three panel montage is utilized extremely well in showing the passage of time within the narrative. Truth be told, a lot of the montages in the movie are confusing, but ALL of them are engrossing, especially with Adam Driver’s intoxicating deliver over top of them. The montage where he’s cross-faded, the one where he looks into the future, and the one where he’s injured does Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness better than Marvel did. On the other hand, the “Happy Saturnalia” sequence was Coppola throwing everything at the wall in an anarchic montage to set up the finale. Arguably, it kind of works, even with the Elvis impersonator. It was funny however that the biggest innovation of Megalopolis was what was basically a moving walkway from the airport only slower. I imagine that was one of thing lone things that wasn’t intentional.

Allegories in abundance, a call to action, and a staunch criticism of modern film regressing and following the status quo, Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis dares to dream in a sincere epic that serves its own story well but means even more as a championing of a filmmaker’s artistic ambition. Fueled by a hilarious, ridiculous, thought-provoking, and at times magnificent big budget arthouse production and narrative, Megalopolis is definitely silly, but there is a brilliance in its core that will take years to be analyzed and fully appreciated because of the anarchy of its surface. With Adam Driver and Giancarlo Esposito fully committing to the over-the-top style of Coppola’s modern Roman epic, leading a cast of cancelled actors who fill in the cracks with fun performances and character arcs, a story that is hard to follow but inexplicably alluring in every aspect, Megalopolis has to be seen to be believed and thoroughly discussed. For fans of cinema, isn’t that what it’s all about? It’s not for everyone, but it’s bravery in trying to be as bold and creative as possible to differentiate itself from everything else is exactly the Hollywood we should all want in the future. There’s still so much to accomplish in film. We have to keep moving it forward with movies like Megalopolis. So, it begs the question, is there time?

“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape, finding yourself in the ranks of the insane”.

– Marcus Aurelius

Fun Fact: Through the years of development hell, Francis Ford Coppola had table reads with Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Paul Newman, Leonardo DiCaprio, Nicolas Cage, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, Uma Thurman, James Gandolfini, Jon Hamm, and Edie Falco. Matt Dillon was also offered a role he thought he was too old for when the screenplay was much different. When pre-production started up again in 2019, Jude Law was approached for a role. Others who were in negotiations included James Caan, Cate Blanchett, Oscar Isaac, Michelle Pfeiffer, Forest Whitaker, Zendaya, and Jessica Lange. Caan was supposed to play Dustin Hoffman’s role as his “swan song” until he passed away, which does make sense as Caan being an intimidating fixer is a lot more logical than Hoffman doing it.