This film has gained a bit of a reputation because it was suppose to be really bad and I wanted to go and see it because I was intrigued by it and also wanted to see a Francis Ford Coppola film at the cinema. I had read in trivia about this film that he had to sell his winery to pay for this film because he didn’t want any studio interference and never has a film needed more studio interference as much as this film did.
GOOD POINT
Esposito, Emmanuel and Fishburne
Giancarlo Esposito, Nathalie Emmanuel and Laurence Fishburne are the ONLY three that give good performances. They seem to somehow make sense of this madness and deliver some good performances. Emmanuel is the weaker of the three but that's because the character wasn't the best written and I think to make her as good as she was is down entirely to Emmanuel herself and not Coppola.
BAD POINTS
Terrible Performances
I don’t think i have seen a film waste a cast as badly as this since Cats.
Jon Voigt looks like he was woken up from his afternoon nap and told to say lines into the camera. Dustin Hoffman looks like he was dug up from a cemetery which is ironic as he replaced James Caan who had passed away before filming. Aubrey Plaza is normally very good in what she is in even if the film itself is not and yet she was totally terrible as the terribly named Wow Platinum which must seem like a amusing name to Coppola but to me it was eye rolling and showed that the film isn't as smart as it thinks it is. Adam Driver is another who normally gives a good performance even when the film isn't great and he delivers one of the worst performances ever. If I didn't know better then I would say it was cry for help aimed at Disney.
Shia LaBeouf
No one is as bad as LaBeouf. I don’t think a word exists for how bad he is. I think he had an idea of what he wanted to do and the director just said yes because there is no other explanation that makes sense for why he did what he did. The Madison Square Garden scene is by far the worst part of a terrible outing and was the point where I thought the film had lost the literal and figurative plot. Even by his low standards, LaBeouf excels himself in being terrible and utterly slappable.
Looked Cheap
This film reportedly had a budget of $120 million dollars and looks like it cost about $20 million. Most scenes seemed to be filmed in front of a green screen and looks terrible. According to IMDB trivia, Coppola fired most of his visual effects team cause Coppola wanted to use technology similar to what was used in The Mandalorian TV series. I was reminded of The Creator which has a budget of $80 million and yet looks like it cost $200 million.
Two People walked Out
There were five people in this screening (including me) at 7:15 on a Monday evening and two people walked out. I was considering it for a good 20 minutes but decided to persevere. I have never walked out of a film before but came pretty close. I had given up on the film after 15 minutes which was bad for me because I still had another TWO HOURS left.
Weird Directing & Editing
It’s a shame that the director of The Godfather directed this. This film has so many weird directing choices and also some poor editing choices. Scenes just happen out of nowhere then end and move onto something else. Normally this is so that the audience doesnt have time to think about what was happening but in this case I think it’s because they didn’t know what they were doing.
The Worst Vanity Project
This film has being in production hell since the 1980’s and Coppola has been trying to get it financed and struggled and to be honest, it wasn't worth the wait. I think vanity projects are fine if they cost less than $10 million but $120 million shows that he doesn't really value money because he wouldn't have spent that much money and be so lacking in quality control.
OVERALL
This is one of the worst films I have seen at the cinema since I started keeping track in 2016. Fantasy Island was the worst film that I had seen but this easily beats it. The reason is that it’s longer than Fantasy Island and at least I could see what they were aiming for in that film. This film doesn't know what its doing, the director doesn't seem to be giving his cast any instruction. This film isn't so bad its good, its so bad that it should be avoided at all cost. I spent £5 and still felt like I was robbed. Had I paid the full £12 then I would have been fuming.
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