It’s easy to be jaded in the year of our lord 2024 about legacy sequels. What once seemed like a novelty less than a decade ago—back when Harrison Ford said, “Chewie, we’re home”—has increasingly become a threat. Hollywood studios continue to be hellbent on dragging from the grave every 1980s

It’s been a few days since Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis premiered at Cannes, and I’m still struggling to find the exact words to describe this monstrous opus of a film. Is it brilliant labour of chaotic love to the cinematic art form, or simply a laborious mess of boundless magnitudes?