Bad Times at the El Royale’s previews are deceptive and marketing failed this movie. The preview seemed to allude to supernatural elements, but it did not have any. It was released shortly after Hotel Artemis and had an Identity vibe so it felt as if it was a movie that I already saw and did not necessarily want to revisit because I would already know what to expect. It was another movie set in one location with a cast of varied characters played by an ensemble cast of fairly well known actors who for whatever reason would not be able to leave and forced to interact with each other. The only real mysteries would be the characters’ motivation for staying or the contrived premise for not being able to leave. I loved Identity, but Hotel Artemis disappointed me so it was too soon to give this movie a chance, and I decided not to see it in theaters.
I’m uncertain whether I liked Bad Times at the El Royale because I saw it at home and had low expectations or whether the movie actually had a solid story, and I would not have minded paying money and seeing it on the big screen. I do love Drew Goddard so I’m not surprised. Goddard wrote Cloverfield and episodes for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Alias and Lost (booooo), but more importantly he wrote and directed The Cabin in the Woods.
Bad Times at the El Royale never reaches The Cabin in the Woods deliciousness and is a far more somber piece. It is way more clash of character driven although there is still a secular sinister conspiracy framework, which ultimately is responsible for bringing the eclectic cast together. It is set in 1969 at a mo/hotel that straddles state lines between California and Nevada. Guests include an unctuous salesman played by Jon Hamm, a singer played by Cynthia Erivo, who is my new fave after Widows, but I didn’t recognize her until late in the movie, a priest played by Jeff Bridges, and a mysterious woman played by Dakota Johnson. Miles Miller, played by Lewis Pullman, is the only employee who serves them, and it is the obvious that the place is a shadow of what it once was.
The mo/hotel is like another character. It almost seems like a metaphor for the state of the nation, a place of celebration and luxury that has turned into a deceptive derelict and corrupt locus for destroying souls without caring about the fallout of its true purpose, power, and the cost to the collateral damage, actual human beings experiencing the neglect of government for the greater good. If mo/hotel is a microcosm for the America, and the characters represent a cross sampling of Americans after the government has either abandoned or failed at any attempt to create a benevolent society in service to its citizens. The trajectory of Bad Times at the El Royale’s plot is towards redemption, and there is a vague sense of a just and loving God like in John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany as an invisible guiding force that uses willing human beings to oppose the men in power who want to be God and demand human sacrifice. I think that if this dynamic, particularly the benevolent, invisible God angle, was alluded to earlier and in a more explicit way, the movie could have packed more of a punch. It starts too cynically in its attitude about God without leaving enough time to recover so the switch and rescue becomes too sudden to truly appreciate.
I have read critiques that think that Goddard is mimicking Quentin Tarantino because there are bursts of violence that eventually culminate in a crescendo. I absolutely disagree even on a stylistic level. It is a period piece, but the violence is very restrained and characterized negatively. Bad Times at the El Royale is a morality play designed to critique a way of acting and thinking that is inclined towards deception and physical harm, but rewards civility, kindness and creativity. It is extremely old-fashioned in its sensibilities.
Bad Times at the El Royale is plot heavy, but there are no dangling threads although it could strain audiences’ credulity that all of these people with all their hidden motives would be there that one fateful night. It worked for me, but I did not always like the way that the story was structured. It divides the story into rooms so sometimes when perspective is switched, the movie shows us an earlier scene from a different perspective, which gets repetitive and makes the movie longer than it needs to be. The runtime is one hundred forty one minutes. At a certain point, I wanted to yell, “I get it! Move on!” It makes a revelation become tedious instead of leaving you gasping in shock.
Bad Times at the El Royale has a lot of great performances, but Jon Hamm isn’t one of them. Mad Men is in my queue, but I’ve seen him in a number of movies, and I’m never impressed, or I forget that he was even in the movie. He is one of the crucial points at the beginning of the movie, and I just don’t think that he was good at all. His character is tricky because he has to play the character equivalent of a Matryoshka doll, but he has been doing this for a long time, and his performance was terrible. It was a weak start for the movie.
Fortunately Pullman and Cailee Spaeny’s unexpected perfect performances makes Bad Times at the El Royale riveting, and as their screen time gradually increased, so did my interest in the movie. Their characters are a slow burn that really pays off. Chris Hemsworth is really good when he gets a chance to act against type, but also tacitly acknowledges his fame and resume in his performance and isn’t afraid to make fun of it or twist it into something different. If we’ve seen countless images of women tempting men, he offers a refreshing counter as a seductive man completely conscious of the effect that his body has on others. It is a smart, counter cultural, not at all instinctual performance given the type of character that he is supposed to play. There is Salome’s dance then Hemsworth. If an overhyped, but crap actor like Tobey Maguire played the same role, he would go for impish smile then vein popping screaming, which is one of the main reasons that I hate him. Hemsworth balances the physical and mental in his art of manipulation and his interaction with Erivo is one of the best parts of the movie as his face projects every change in the emotional tone of the scene. If his movies outside of Marvel are bad, don’t blame him.
Bad Times at the El Royale is a solid movie, and while the story works, the actual narrative structure needed a little more work and editing to tighten up what could have been a tense and riveting story that lingered too long at some points and did not evoke enough foreshadowing in others to create a stronger impact in its spiritual message.