I’m putting this here because “Star Trek Sunday” rules may forbid posting this in the Movies comm today.
In an alternate present-day “American Republic”, Cesar Catilina clashes with the New Rome city mayor Franklyn Cicero. Cesar is the inventor of Megalon, a revolutionary new bio-adaptive building material he believes can change the world, and has ambitious plans to utilize it to construct “Megalopolis”, a futuristic utopian city of his own design. After Cesar announces his intentions in a televised speech, Cicero leads a smear campaign against him involving the death of his wife and the post-mortem disappearance of her body in unexplained circumstances.
TV presenter Wow Platinum, Cesar’s mistress, leaves him to marry Hamilton Crassus III, an extremely wealthy elderly bank CEO and Cesar’s uncle. Shortly afterward, Cesar becomes acquainted with Julia, Cicero’s well-read daughter. While initially distrusting and spying on him, she soon develops feelings for him. When Julia reveals herself immune to Cesar’s ability to stop time, he brings her on to assist in the Megalopolis project.
At a lavish and decadent wedding reception for Wow Platinum and Crassus, Cesar takes drugs backstage. Clodio Pulcher, Crassus’s depraved grandson, sabotages the show to implicate Cesar in a sex scandal involving Vesta, a teenage pop star with a virginal image. Cesar is arrested but ultimately cleared of any wrongdoing and released, while Vesta continues her career after adopting a new rebellious and sexually charged persona. Soon, Cesar and Julia become romantically involved. Cesar laments the loss of his ability to stop time following his arrest but finds himself able to do it with Julia.
A Soviet Union satellite falls out of orbit over New Rome, destroying large parts of the city. Cesar uses the opportunity to begin construction of Megalopolis, despite Cicero’s opposition. In a press conference, he urges the need for debate and dialogue about society and asks people to consider if a better world is possible. Cesar is delighted to learn that Julia is pregnant, while Cicero is aghast. Privately, he pleads with Cesar to leave his daughter, attempting to bribe him with information about what happened to his wife, but Cesar refuses. Clodio begins stirring up popular discontent against both Cesar and Cicero with fascist rhetoric, while separately, Wow Platinum convinces him to assist her in a plan to take control of Crassus’s fortune via hostile takeover, freezing Cesar’s bank accounts in the process.
Cesar is shot in the head and severely wounded in an assassination attempt but heals quickly thanks to a Megalon skin graft. The protests against Cesar and Cicero led by Clodio turn into full-scale riots, and Cicero flees to a secret underground bunker. After being forced from his position as bank CEO by the board of directors, Crassus confronts Wow Platinum and Clodio with a bow and arrow, killing Platinum and wounding Clodio. Confronting protestors at Megalopolis, Cesar gives an impassioned speech about the future and wins the crowd over. Clodio’s protestors turn against him, and he is killed and has his body strung up by an angry mob. Crassus pledges to use his wealth to support the construction of Megalopolis.
Sometime later, the construction of Megalopolis is completed. Cicero, holding Julia and Cesar’s baby daughter, Sunny Hope, promises to work together with Cesar to keep building a better future.
“What if there was a Great Man, so Great that he could do magic? And all the poors and stupids and weaklings were mad about that, so the Great Man showed them. He showed them all! The end!”
For some fucked up reason that also summarizes the plot of Ready Player One’s even worse sequel.
Even worse? How?
To summarize a painfully long read (CW: SV, chaserism, nonconsensual mind control fetish):
spoiler
The ego-insert-of-the-author protagonist of the first shitty book is now basically
in the second book, and is about as good at running the world as 
would be because the planet’s still dying and the material conditions and internal contradictions of the very late stage capitalistic system are even worse than they were before.
The author is a hack that got rich from regurgitating cishet white dude Gen-X nostalgia shit, so I didn’t expect him to explore or even understand the setting that he was presenting, but even so, it’s important to emphasize that the “hero” of this sequel spends most of the runtime feeling sorry for himself for being underappreciated and disliked by the lessers and the poors that resent him and his inept leadership. So, he does what narcissists do: he gets even more self-absorbed, even giving birth to himself in a grotqesque VR experience in a way that (according to the hack author) magically granted him “empathy” powers. The “hero” then uses those “empathy” powers to effectively mind-hack potential waifus online, finding exactly what they want and what makes them tick and consequently building up a harem that way, sort of like
's “math pets” except with less coercive drugging and more internet magic brain hacking. The “hero” even gets horny for a trans person because that shows that the “hero” is actually really progressive and forward thinking and open minded in a sex pest sex touristy way!
Ultimately, the entire mess wraps up with the “hero” and his mindhacked waifu harem escaping into space and going away from the dying Earth because fuck all those resentful ignorant poors, amirite?
That’s right. The heroic finale is, effectively, Little St. James in space except it’s not entirely clear what the actual ages of the mindhacked waifus are. Maybe it’s left up to the average bazinga consumer to fill in the blanks but the vibes were still there.