There’s no way I’ll be watching Megalopolis, but the broader point Matt Zoller Seitz makes here is a very good one:
Movies like “Megalopolis” used to be released fairly regularly, by major studios, which are increasingly not in the movie business, but the IP regurgitation business. Movies were always a popular art form, but it used to be understood that sometimes you’d deliberately seek out something different, challenging, and perhaps obscure or ‘arty’ just to have a reaction to it and be able to discuss it with others. Movies like this only seem “indulgent” because we’re so deep into the era where everything has to be unmitigated fan service, the cinematic equivalent of cooking the Whopper exactly how the customer dreamed about ordering it, or else it’s considered a waste of time — or worse, a form of acting-out by some bratty person who thinks they’re an artist rather than what they presumably are, an employee of whomever bought a ticket.