MEGALOPOLIS
Writer/Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Starring: Adam Driver, Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel, Shia LaBeouf, Aubrey Plaza, Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Fishburne, Talia Shire, Jason Schwartzman, Kathryn Hunter, Grace VanderWaal, Chloe Fineman
Francis Ford Coppola is a 5-time Oscar winner thanks to timeless masterpieces like The Godfather movies, Apocalypse Now, and more. His new film, Megalopolis, is a passion project decades in the making. Coppola labels this film as a fable. It’s a cautionary tale as told through the lens of the fall of the Roman Empire. Yes, it would help to know that story going in. He sets this in the 21st Century, third millennium in New Rome, which is clearly what we think of New York City today. Adam Driver leads this large ensemble as Cesar Catalina. He’s a Nobel-prize winning inventor whose latest project involves rebuilding the city for a sustainable and environmentally friendly for future generations. His rival is current Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Esposito) who has his own ideas for the future of New Rome. They represent the very real notion of two people who want to run the city and have two vastly different visions for how to achieve that. Cesar is obsessive, compulsive, and won’t stop of making his dreams come true. Cicero’s daughter, Julia (Emmanuel), becomes infatuated with Cesar going so far as to marrying him and going against her father’s wishes. It sounds messy enough and then Cesar’s cousin Clodio (LaBeouf) enters the picture as something of an influencer and disruptor, ready to shake things up, blackmail Cesar, and start his own revolution. In theaters
Here’s my review
