william kilpatrick

I was really looking forward to this. Francis Ford Coppola is one of the great directors of our time. Unfortunately, this mess of a vanity project (Coppola wrote it, directed and produced it) is a dumpster fire. Coppola throws out everything he knows to give us a heavy-handed yarn that is visually sumptuous but a parade of talky scenes where actors expound their plot points, which feel like they were written in middle school. The film is both stiff and campy at the same time. Some of Hollywood's best actors are wasted on dialogue that feels so over-the-top. I really wanted to like this but knew, within two minutes, that I wouldn't. Instead, I sat there for three hours scratching my head and wondering why nobody spoke up before it was released. Not since The Clown Who Cried has there been a production so worthy of Development Hell. Ed Wood made bad movies but he did it on a budget. This one proves that money is not a substitute for a script. Kudos to the actors - including Adam Driver and Jon Voight - for ignoring the silliness of the plot and simply going for gold, which is a lot like grabbing the wheel extra hard when you're the captain of the Titanic.

I loved this movie, for its wit, its observations and its refusal to treat long-dead generations as if they were made of clay. It wasn't as simply comedic as the trailers suggest. There's a lot of drama between the gags. But if this film isn't simply Mean Girls: 18th Century, it's so much more in what it says about human nature and power. I liked how the ultimate villain wasn't flesh and blood but the system, itself, which pitted anybody with a brain against anybody with a brain.