For those paying attention, Drew Goddard is one of the most exciting filmmakers working in genre projects these days. On the TV side, he's written for Buffy, Angel, LOST, and Alias and directed episodes of The Good Place. Working in film, his writing credits range from Cloverfield to The Martian to The Cabin in the Woods, which he also directed. If Joss Whedon is the king of genre programming, then Drew Goddard is the crown prince. He is excellent at playing with formula and injecting levity into serious topics. The easiest way to describe his work is "fun". So, as soon as I heard he had a new movie, I was excited to see it.
Bad Times at the El Royale is Goddard's long-awaited directorial followup to the wonderfully chaotic Cabin in the Woods. The premise is simple enough: four strangers check into a rundown hotel that's built on the Nevada/California state line. Their stories intersect in numerous ways over two hours. There's Jeff Bridges playing a priest, Jon Hamm as a vacuum salesman, Cynthia Eviro as a session singer, and Dakota Johnson as a sort of angry hippie. They all have secrets. So does Miles, who is apparently the only employee at the hotel, and several others who show up along the way; most notably Chris Hemsworth. That's about as much into the plot that you want me to go.
I'm a little shocked that in the buildup to this movie I haven't heard more people mention Tarantino as an influence. I'm sure many people have and I just missed it, because this is exactly the kind of thing Tarantino has made his reputation on. The Hateful Eight shares the exact same structure. The Tarantino-produced and co-directed movie Four Rooms is a luxury hotel version of El Royale. Bad Times is told in chapters, named for different rooms or characters. The stories often backtrack from where the last one left off, showing a different perspective that sheds new light on events. Things take numerous left turns and escalate in severe ways. I love this kind of playful storytelling. It tricks me into being a more active audience member, and Godard knows how to do it well.
It's also the kind of movie that the actors have a blast in. The big standout is Cynthia Erivo. She's already known to fans of Broadway, but for those of us who just watch movies, this is a fierce debut. I don't want to get too specific about her performance, again, because I don't want to tip the movie's hand at all. What I can say is that the role requires her to sing a lot and she doesn't disappoint in the least. Jon Hamm gets to be delightfully sleazy. Jeff Bridges plays a genuinely sweet, bad man, which is kind of his specialty. Chris Hemsworth relishes a chance to be the bad guy. Perhaps the most notable thing about any of the performances though is that Lewis Pullman is, in fact, not Tom Holland. I knew he wasn't Tom Holland, even in the trailers, but I really hadn't thought about it. That guy has a long career ahead of him as "a Tom Holland type".
The big problem with Bad Times is that the juice isn't worth the squeeze. It's too long, and you really feel it. It's about one big twist too few to justify the length. It's just not crazy enough. It isn't really that much fun either. In fact, it's kind of moralizing. Except, that the moralizing doesn't really land. At one point, Erivo gets this great speech that she delivers wonderfully, except it felt really out of place.
I'm not changing my opinion of Drew Godard after this. No one has a perfect filmography. This is a miss, but not a failure. He flexes narrative muscles that he'll be able to use and improve later. None of the actors come out of this looking bad. Bad Times at the El Royale was worth a try. It's a second choice movie though. You know, you want to watch Cabin in the Woods or The Hateful Eight again, but you've watched it recently. So, you watch Bad Times at the El Royale instead, because it's kind of the same thing; scratches the same itch well enough.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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