MEGALOPOLIS (2025)

With theatrical trailer/promotions promising the Francis Ford Coppola who made THE GODFATHER and APOCALYPSE NOW, the infamous MEGALOPOLIS is actually a reworking of Coppola's SE Hinton adaptation RUMBLE FISH: as a giant clock beneath rolling clouds shadow an urban city skyline with a massive metronome-like clock ticking; an overall theme about time; and Laurence Fishburne as a narrating tagalong/bodyguard to a misunderstood dark-haired male lead... 

And the only two characters that actually seem to matter are Adam Driver, the utopian creator of a gelatin-like substance to build cities, with his rival mayor's beautiful daughter Nathalie Emmanuel, who loves him — particularly since a superpower to literally stop time only occurs if she's around... 

One of many bizarre symbols in what's more a futuristic art-house allegory than the fable built into the titular tagline... and of course there's the history of ancient Rome acted out in a busy hybrid of Shakespearian stage-play and colorful gladiator-style arena-filled bedlam: depicting what's supposed to be America but is, for unexplained reasons, now deemed New Rome... Yet the action's only sporadic while the monologues take up the entire film: spilling out of far too many side-characters that could have been channeled into two people... that almost seem game for the kind of backstabbing mafioso-style takeover-subplot where THE GODFATHER director should excel... 

For example, instead of a much too old and feeble Jon Voight as the rich banker/uncle of Driver's central messianic architect Caesar, cancelled hyperactive bad-boy actor Shia LaBeouf and offbeat femme-fatale diva Aubrey Plaza should have been the sole antagonists: providing Caesar more youthfully energetic bulwarks beyond his constant second-guessing and naval-gazing philosophies... 

Even his urban political rival Giancarlo Esposito (paired with a completely unessential Dustin Hoffman) is neither threatening or formidable (and "Gus Fring" can pull off both): his only purpose is being a determined father against his daughter's ambitious lover... a character who Coppola can't decide is a flawed hero and idealistic antihero... 

Making all the red-drenched/dressed-up excessive party sequences (looking more from Coppola's daughter Sofia's wheelhouse) ultimately as superfluous as the special-effects, awkwardly clashing with otherwise pedestrian exterior daylight police-car sequences liken to a TV-procedural while the dark, ominously-towering buildings feebly attempt the stylized steampunk of SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW... or BLADE RUNNER or any futuristic dystopian thriller that looks more fitfully expensive than this labor-of-love opus that financially ruined a veteran auteur: who should have put more time into creating a coherent/consistent plot-line instead of a mind-wrecking barrage of lofty ideals and exhausting pontificating... 

A shame since there are actually faint traces where the primary characters almost matter...or seem to be nearly heading somewhere... But the now nearly-broke Francis Ford Coppola (ironically liken to his billionaire buddy George Lucas) stopped considering audiences long ago... So MEGALOPOLIS shouldn't surprise anyone who's been paying attention (with false hopes exceeding optimistic anticipation) for the last three or four decades — of the emperor having no clothes. RATES: *1/2