I used to be a BIG movie goer. Didn't take much to get me to the theater and fork over my cash to see a movie. Over the past 5 years, however, my time spent at the theater has greatly been reduced. Why? Because of the kind of films being released. In the last month I've gone to the theater three times however. First to see the bio picture: Reagan; then to see Francis Ford Coppolla's Megalopolis, then to the the Joaquin Phoenix, Lada Gaga helmed Joker: Foile a Deux. This post will focus on the later two I mentioned. Let's start be diving into Megalopolis.
I went into Megalopolis expecting to see a movie about New York recovering after a terrorist attack set in the near future, where an architect plans a new city. What I ended up seeing was something different. YES, this Megalopolis is a movie about an architect trying to get his version of utopia enacted in a city. But Francis decided to put a little distance between New York and reality. Though this city looks and functions a lot like New York it's called New Rome -- and there is odd blending of New York and ancient Rome fashion, arcitecture, clothing and hair styles. This strange balance never really work or is believable.
What did work in Francis Ford Coppolla's Megalopolis was the characters. I really like that Francis has TWO really good bad guys to root against: Audry Plaza's "Wow Platinum", and Shia LeBeouf's "Clodio Pulcher". I also bought the emerging romance between Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) and Julia Cisero played by Nathalie Emmanuel.
There was a lot in Megalopolis that didn't make a lot of sense, like for most of the movie how Cesar Catalina could stop time, which was his superpower that helped him become a great architect how? Hmmm... In the end Megalopolis asks the audience to buy in to too many contrivances. The plot logic is real loose and hard to follow. In the end Megaloplolis attempts to make a point about how America should be striving to avoid decline by striving to enter into a utopia of sorts. But all the mishmashing of ancient Roman to modern times is a real misfire that dooms the film from making the points that I think Francis Ford Coppolla wants to make. So in the end Megalopolis is slightly more good than bad, but really looks bad when you consider that Francis Ford Coppolla wanted to make this movie for greater than forty years. For an idea that became a movie to exist for that long, you would expect a better plot and some of the logic issues worked out. In that regard this movie: Megalopolis really tarnishes Francis Ford Coppolla's greater legacy as this is the man who is know for The Godfather (1972) and Apocalypse Now (1979), and is a FIVE TIME Oscar winner with three of wins coming in screenwriting. But that was the 1970s, this is now. Still, respect shown for Francis who's in his mid 80s -- and still active making movie. Good for him!
I went into Joker: Foile A Deux expecting this to be an actor's showcase for the talents of Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, and I was right! They shine and truly are the reason to watch this dark, low budget, downer drama. For my money Lady Gaga steals the show as a trouble young woman, Lee Quinzel, who is drawn to the notoriety that Arthur Fleck has gotten in Gotham city for killing a late night TV show host. Lee is so drawn to the Joker that she gets herself committed to the same insane assylum that Arthur is being held at.
Joker: Foile A Deux is at its best when Lady Gaga is trying to appeal to Arthur. Unfortunately, too much of this movie looks like this --
Where you're in Arthur's head, as he fantasizes about singing lounge numbers with Lee -- most of them while the Joker is smoking. It really doesn't work, and weighs the movie down. Arthur is in murder trial facing the death penalty. So there is a lot of courtroom drama. And that means there's not a lot of greater Joker criminal mastermind action. I did like the ending where it sets up an inmate taking over for Arthur as the Joker when he kills him in prison, but as a whole there's just not enough greater plot to keep me engaged. Still, more good than bad. Just too much song and dance numbers that really don't advance a meaningful central conflict.
So in the end...
Megalopolis suffers from a cultural mishmash of the cities of today being blended with ancient Rome, and insuficient set-up of Cesar Catlina's powers and the strange discovery that made him famous.
Joker: Foile a Deux suffers from a lackluster central question of identity, will Arthur Fleck chose to live as his alter-ego: the Joker; or own up to the murders he committed.
Both movies could have been better, imo. With Megalopolis being the one with less of an excuse for being a disappointment because of how long Francis Ford Coppolla had been working on it and how he touted it as being his opus.