With so little to show for its dizzying ambitions, Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Megalopolis’ hits theaters with a thorny challenge for viewers: skip it and instead spend two and a half hours numbing your brain on TikTok. Or show some respect and see why Coppola, 85, spent $120 million of his own vineyard fortune on a passion project he’s been working on since 1977.

Coppola is always the best when he flirts with disaster. Think of the trilogy ‘The Godfather’, ‘Apocalypse Now’, ‘The Conversation’ and ‘Bram Stoker’s Dracula’. You can feel the air rushing out of the bell when he is sailing out with, for example, ‘The Cotton Club’ or ‘The Rainmaker’.

“Megalopolis” may have a high offering, but there isn’t a lazy moment in it. Adam Driver gives it his all as Cesar Catilina, a visionary architect straight out of Ayn Rand’s ‘The Fountainhead’ who wants to build the New Rome, a synthesis of futuristic New York and the Roman Empire. If that sounds grand, you ain’t heard nothing yet.

New Rome is in danger of finally falling when Cesar clashes with right-wing mayor Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito) over how to rebuild a city from its ruins with a revolutionary new material called Megalon. Don’t get too excited. You can’t order Megalon online, at least not yet.

As Cesar stands atop the vertiginous Chrysler Building (a stunning sight), the film introduces its themes and characters. Take Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel), who is caught in the middle as Franklin’s daughter and Cesar’s wife love each other.

Coppola deliberately makes his film so busy that the audience might need a scorecard. Among the veterans you will find Laurence Fishburne, who earned his acting chops in ‘Apocalypse Now’. There’s also a “Midnight Cowboy” reunion for Dustin Hoffman as Nush Berman, Franklyn’s fixer, and Jon Voight as Hamilton Crassus III, Cesar’s wealthy banking uncle.

Coppola isn’t above honoring family loyalty and casting his Oscar-nominated sister Talia Shire as Cesar’s mother and Shire’s son, the excellent Jason Schwartzman, as part of Franklin’s team. Both avoid any nepo-baby snark by acquitting themselves admirably.

It’s a real feat for an actor in “Megalopolis” not to get lost in the crowd, whether the citizens are dressed in the latest trend or wandering around in togas. Shia LaBeouf absolutely makes a spectacle of herself as Cesar’s mullet cousin with a heart for Julia.

Still, the standout in a cast of thousands is Aubrey Plaza as Wow Platinum (I love the name), a TV gossip who specializes in financial crimes and misdemeanors and gets some much-needed laughs with little help from the script, which unfortunately specializes in heavy work.

It’s up to Driver to keep our interest despite the handicap of playing a symbol of virtue, while the snake played by the towering Esposito gets all the best lines. Yet Cesar can freeze time with his mind, an enviable skill for audiences who may need a timeout to make sense of an epic film that often resists logic and clarity.

In a recent interview after a screening of “Megalopolis,” Coppola suggested that the upcoming presidential election could reflect Rome’s demise “for the same reasons Rome lost its republic and ended up with an emperor.”

Maybe so, but Coppola is too good a filmmaker to become obsessed with party politics. At its best, “Megalopolis” makes a universal point about the many ways power corrupts. Al Pacino’s godfather lost his soul to it and Marlon Brando’s apocalyptic colonel lost his sanity.

The driver’s architect is on a precipice, exactly where Coppola wants us, given a future that dies without our participation. There’s no denying that “Megalopolis” is a mess, but the lion that created it still roars, even in winter.