Time Out reviewed Megalopolis, then outsourced the classics homework to Mary Beard.

Dave Calhoun says the Roman references require a classicist, then awaits Mary Beard. Magnifique: a professional critic has installed a forwarding address where the analysis should live. You needn't translate Cicero to review a film, but identifying interpretive difficulty and mailing it to another department is criticism conducted by reception desk.

Then comes the intellectual-deadness verdict. Which idea collapses? How? Calhoun supplies an ingredient list instead: cast, budget, ambition, gestation. This is a restaurant inspector finding the soup disappointing and submitting the grocery receipt as laboratory evidence.

His proposed stylistic remedy is Baz Luhrmann. An intriguing comparison, abandoned before it becomes an argument. What specific technique would help? Apparently another director's name is sufficient: cinematic analysis as prescribing an entire pharmacist. Meanwhile, Coppola's career and wine business receive space that might have accommodated an actual scene.

Calhoun does identify visual datedness and gives readers a clear recommendation. But the review's intellectual authority outruns its demonstration like a sommelier fleeing with the only corkscrew. Three out of ten for criticism that summons a historian, a replacement director and a drinks trolley before producing much evidence. This is not culture, this is commerce.