#62: MEGAPOOPISS

STARRING: Adam Driver, Nathalie Emmanuel, Giancarlo Esposito, Aubrey Plaza, Shia LaBeouf, Jon Voight, Laurence Fishburne, Kathryn Hunter, Dustin Hoffman and Jason Schwartzman. Written, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Budget $120 million. Running time 138 years.

Set in the American Republic of New Rome City (imagine an alternative to New York City but with people who act like Romans from a 1950's Hollywood Roman Sword and Sandal adventure). Adam Driver is Cesar Catilina, an architect, with the ability to stop time, who has visions of building Utopia in the slums of New York using a new substance called Megalon, which seems to be an organic self-replicating 'smart' cement. He's in open conflict with Mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), who wants to build a casino on the very same site as Cesar's dream city, Oh, and Cesar's in love with Franklyn's daughter, Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel). Meanwhile, Cesar's ex-girlfriend Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza) has her eyes on Cesar's uber-rich uncle and banker, Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight), and teams up with Clodio Pulcher (Shia LaBeouf), Cesar's jealous cousin to try and take over Crassus's bank in an attempt to bankrupt Cesar. Along for the ride are characters like Nush Berman (Dustin Hoffman), Aram Kazanjian (Balthazar Getty), Fundi Romaine (Laurence Fishburne), Cesar's right-hand man and narrator of this film, Jason Schwartzman, Talia Shire (Cesar's mother), and about a hundred other people.

And that, in a nutshell is the plot to this, Francis Ford Coppola's 24th and quite possibly last ever film and what a film to end a career on, a career that includes some of the greatest movies ever made, movies like The Godfather I, II & III, The Conversation, Apocalypse Now. The Outsiders, Rumblefish, Tucker and Bram Stoker's Dracula. 

Of which none of those, rest assured, will ever been mentioned in the same breathe as this effort. From beginning to end this is a dreadful, dreary, dull mess of a film, with strangely stilted awkward dialogue, OTT acting and all the visual flair of a car advert. 

The combination of old Rome and later day New York is an interesting idea, but jars badly here, it doesn't go far enough, because there's just too much story and way too many characters to cram into this bloated drivel. The lame, almost pantomime-esque machinations and palace intrigue that passes for drama is laughable and it's all delivered in such an OTT manner by everyone involved that it just becomes a clumsy farce. 

Added to that the editing which chops up dialogue so badly that at times it seems unclear what emotions some of the characters are trying to convey, as the scene changes during exchanges. Oh and some not very subtle digs at a certain Presidential hopeful.

The idea of a visionary new building material and building Utopia is an intriguing premise but this film takes so long with guff about boring relationships with wives, ex-wives and girlfriends, dead wives, mothers, cousins, uncles etc that all that gets forgotten until the final 30 odd minutes finally drags itself into view then it's a slow walk to the finishing line. 

All that said, there is one intriguing idea which is hinted at but poorly devloped. At one point Cesar is almost killed in an assassination attempt and Megalon is used to fill the hole in his head the bullet made. But that's all but forgotten come the next scene. 

There are so many great actors in this, all giving it 150% when 80% would have been fine that it seems churlish to single out any single one of them to point a finger of blame at, although Shia LaBeouf comes pretty goddam close. However, the true architect of this film's utter awfulness is Coppola himself, who sank $120 million of his own money into this effort, which has taken him 40 years to realise. God, imagine spending all that money and so much of your life on one project only for it to arrive at the end like a huge pile of steaming dung.

A long, boring, exploration of something or other that's really not worth a moment of your time and certainly not 40 years of your life. 

2/10