Bad Times at the El Royale

Starring: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, Nick Offerman,Shea Whigham, William B. Davis
Directed by: Drew Goddard
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Mystery
2018

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Six strangers randomly come together at the El Royale hotel, each with their own secretive reason for being there.

Review:

Tim: I was really looking forward to Bad Times at the El Royale. I absolutely adored Drew Goddard's directorial debut, The Cabin in the Woods (which is still one of my favorite horror movies). I was so excited that after 7 years, we got another directorial effort. I spent most of the film trying so hard to enjoy it. At first, I wanted to love the film. As it progressed, I would have been content with liking it. While Goddard does a few good things with his film, it's really hard to enjoy it (although I admit many critics did). Quite frankly, the film is a mess. In the end, I'd call it a decent movie, but it's promise is completely squandered.

I love the premise of the film- 6 strangers come together at the El Royale, a hotel that straddles the border between Nevada and California. Each has their own reasons for being there and they each prefer to keep those reasons secret. That sounds like a wonderful set up for a movie. Sadly, so much of the film isn't as effective as it needed to be. First off, it's absurd that this movie is 2 hours and 21 minutes long. There's not a single character interesting enough to support this length. Nothing that happens in the film is that compelling to hold our attention for almost 2.5 hours. I'm still shocked how long the film is. Some of this length is due to the nonlinear aspects of the story. We get scenes from the main timeline and then all these flashback scenes about each of the characters. Sometimes this works- when we come back from a flashback and suddenly have a much better understanding of the character and their impact on the main story. At other points, though, it makes the film feel disjointed and undermines any ability to build momentum. I understand why Goddard did this, but it never works as well as he expected it to. This is a film that tries so hard to be cool, a film that convinces itself that it's just dripping with coolness. And it's never as impressive as it believes itself to be. It's fun, but it's hard to watch a film that thinks it's more fun than it actually is.

I mostly liked the cast, although Goddard does strange things with them. I appreciate his insistence on subverting our expectations. Many surprising choices were made. Unfortunately, not all of them work. Jeff Bridges is in the lead role and he certainly gives a strong performance. Bridges is an excellent actor and I'd watch him in anything. I enjoyed his performance here- it's a layered performance and it gave him the chance to show a range of emotion. Bridges is really good. I was surprised with the big names involved in this film that Cynthia Erivo had as big of a role as she did. She almost emerges as the main character. I thought her performance was good, but not quite good enough. It felt like the film went way out of its way to give her opportunities to sing. Her voice is remarkable, make no mistake about it. However, it felt like the movie sacrificed quality to position her. One song near the end felt completely unnecessary. I have no idea why Goddard featured her so prominently. Her screen time needed to be slashed.

Dakota Johnson is fine. She doesn't really have a whole lot to do, despite getting a decent amount of screen time. She makes far less impact on the film than she needed to. Jon Hamm was fairly good in a complex performance. I was actually fascinated by his character, so I was disappointed that he didn't have more to do. This movie would have been better with more Hamm (and I'm not nearly as big of a fan of his as many people). Chris Hemsworth was terrific in a smaller supporting role. He doesn't show up until later in the film, but he immediately makes his presence felt. Cailee Spaeny was a nonentity in the film. Lewis Pullman had some nice moments towards the end of his performance, but his early scenes were a bit rough. His performance felt forced early on. The cast as a whole is fairly good, but Goddard doesn't fully leverage them. That hurt the movie.

One of the things I loved about The Cabin in the Woods is how Goddard took the conventions of the horror genre and flipped many of them on their heads. That was a horror movie that proved smarter than 99% of the horror movies out there. It delivered an exceptional story while playfully messing with audience expectations. It felt like Goddard tried to do the same things here. My favorite parts of the film were some of those that completely defied expectations for this kind of film. Unfortunately, whereas those moments added to the quality of The Cabin in the Woods, his unique choices here actually made the story less effective.

Bad Times at the El Royale does some unexpected things, but the movie as a whole simply doesn't hold up. It's way too long and not nearly as fun or cool as it thought itself to be. I get why people would be taken into the film, but I never fell under its spell. This is a decent movie, but Goddard has shown more promise than what we got in the film product here. I have to admit, I had much higher expectations for this film. I left it feeling disappointed.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: The Cabin in the Woods, Hotel Artemis