Among the films of Hollywood legend Francis Ford Coppola are some of the most legendary pieces of cinema in history. “The Godfather.” “Apocalypse Now.” These movies have endured in the cultural conversation for decades, and won’t be forgotten anytime soon. But no director is without flaw or flop, and films like “One From the Heart” and “Jack” are a testament to this, bankrupting and besmirching the Coppola name. His latest film “Megalopolis” was shaping up to be a return to form, an operatic, grandiose finale to make the world sing praise for Coppola yet again. Yet this ambitious project, self-financed by selling his personal winery at $120 million, falls decidedly to the bottom of the barrel.

Narratively, it’s as difficult to qualify as it is to follow — which is to say, it’s a mess. Coppola’s film follows architect Cesar Catalina (Adam Driver) who hopes to rebuild the city of New Rome as a utopia with the help of a futuristic building material of his own creation, Megalon. From there, the story spirals into inconsequence, bouncing between a rivalry with Mayor Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), a romance with Julia Cicero (Nathalie Emmanuel), a takeover of the banks run by Cesar’s uncle Hamilton Crassus III (Jon Voight) by the seductive Wow Platinum (Aubrey Plaza, and yes, that’s actually her character’s name) and a slew of anarchic political riots. 

Oh, and I’ve nearly forgotten to mention that Cesar has superpowers. He can stop time at will, and at no point in the story does it seem to impact anything else or have any relevance. It makes for a stunning opening sequence, this power being discovered atop a skyscraper, with the city below stopping and starting at one man’s command. My disappointment grew more and more with each passing moment that failed to live up to what I thought was promised.

There’s a stunning lack of cohesion to it all that feels horribly wrong from the director of “The Godfather.” No two scenes feel connected to each other, and shoddy craftsmanship permeates everything. Cesar’s vision of an ideal futuristic city is awkwardly plastered onto greenscreens and half-rendered, with characters artificially superimposed in a way that wouldn’t look out of place in a Muppets movie. For a bloated $120 million budget, it’s incredible how “Megalopolis” manages to look like it was produced for a tenth of that. Worse yet is how poor it sounds, with the ambience and clatter of elaborately staged backdrops often overpowering the dialogue of a scene. Even on a movie theater’s sound system, characters will often sound like they’re whispering, and I struggled to understand the frequent whispers and mumbled remarks. I can’t imagine trying to comprehend it at home without subtitles.

Frankly, the flaws of “Megalopolis” may have been inevitable given the behind-the-scenes production stories. Reports of Coppola sexually harassing extras surfaced as filming wrapped, as well as stories of his frequent breaks to smoke weed for hours on end. It’s unclear, but given the final product it may very well be the case that much of the movie was rewritten in an altered state. What may have worked for the infamously chaotic set of “Apocalypse Now” — and I say “worked” in the loosest possible way — simply doesn’t fly here. It’s not visionary or daring, just icky and off-putting.

And yet, there are moments of beauty that sneak through the rubbish. A kiss atop a tower, high above the city in the clouds, or the living statues of Justice and the virtues of America falling to the ground with exhaustion — these are scenes brimming with life and gorgeous iconography. These are moments made by the director of “The Godfather.”

Then the director of “Jack” returns, delivering a scene in which Shia LaBeouf’s Clodio Pulcher publicly implicates Cesar in a seemingly-pedophilic sex scandal in the middle of a colosseum that takes the story nowhere.

It’s genuinely sad to watch “Megalopolis” unfold. At its heart, this is Coppola’s rallying cry for a better tomorrow. The utopia that Cesar envisions is flawless: egalitarian, enlightened, eternal, a promise for a brighter future that feels sincere and earnest. Naive, maybe — but wholeheartedly so, and that’s a beautiful thing. Yet for all its sincerity, the entirety of what happens on screen fails to connect emotionally. The story of Coppola making his movie may have proved more entertaining than the final product itself. It was a decades-long struggle filled with setbacks, hardships, tragedy and reinvention. It’s a story that should be easy enough to transcribe onto Cesar Catalina of “Megalopolis,” but any semblance of character growth or development ends up lost in translation.

Coppola has reportedly worked on “Megalopolis” for over four decades, with endless research and writing. It’s just a shame that in those 40-odd years he never bothered to write a second draft.