I was always going to see this film no matter what I would read - I read and heard relatively little on purpose beforehand. This guy made some of my favourite movies (Apocalypse Now arguably being in my Top 5) and the sheer concept of this film and it's background just seemed really intriguing.
Even though it's Coppola I went in with Zero point Zero expectations - None at all. I'm not exaggerating when I say that this was one of the worst films I've ever seen. Like, for real. I sometimes had to hold back laughing so hard that I almost cried because the whole situation was just so unreal. Coppola, the ensemble, the stupid and childish dialogue, the horrible acting, the terrible writing mixed with the fact that it was shot like a Perfume commercial (which I usually kinda like) - it just had me howling at 2 or 3 points. It was like one of those fake movies in Tropic Thunder: Simple Jack and the other one with Downey Jr as a gay priest. Only that this film was an actual movie by Francis Ford mfing Coppola. At some point however I got kinda angry at the film, not because of what was shown in that moment. Some of the things I heard months and months ago, that Coppola was wreckless on set, spend whole days in his trailer smoking joints and rewriting the script and the cast and crew being on hold, and everyone saying 'Well, he's the guy who made Godfather, he can do that if he wants. Godfather was a sh*tshow too and look how that turned out!' - well obviously the film turned out exactly as it sounded from these stories about him on set. In one scene towards the ending involving Aubrey Plaza which had again absolutely ridiculous dialogue I could have sworn to have seen a held back grin by Aubrey in multiple instances, as if she knew how bad this dialogue was. But hey, it's 85 year old Coppola, let him cook! Add to that that they put 'See it in IMAX' into the first trailers at a time IMAX hadn't even agreed to distribution yet, the fact that they MADE UP press quotes and put it in the trailer followed by many apologies by the production team, the fact Coppola says that he knows that the film will be a cult classic in 20 years. As bitter as it may sound, but it's time to leave the stage, old man. Because obviously even the once great geniuses of cinema can't save this artform from the predicament it is currently in.
The film felt like nothing more than a mere indulgence for a once great filmmaker who wanted to get one last taste of a 'big time movie' after having spend decades making obscure indie films that no one has seen - just like this one from the looks of the box office. It's a pseudo-intellectual, honestly childish and immaturely written, badly acted and even worse thought out insult at the legacy of a once great artist.
