Bad Times at the El Royale

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Bad Times at the El Royale centers on a group of strangers staying at a hotel as they go through their various lives. Along the way, secrets and betrayals are revealed and discovered. It is a world where not everybody is what they seem. These characters include a priest (played by Jeff Bridges), a vacuum salesman (played by Jon Hamm), an aspiring singer (played by Cynthia Erivo), the hotel’s only employee (played by Lewis Pullman), and a woman whose secrets may put everybody in jeopardy (played by Dakota Johnson). This is a movie that had me hooked from the very first second. A lot of that comes from Drew Goddard. This is the same man who wrote Cloverfield, The Martian, and World War Z. He’s also worked on television shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Lost and Alias. He also directed and co-wrote The Cabin in the Woods. Goddard is multi-talented, and has worked in multiple genres. The performances in the film are incredible. While Dakota Johnson came off as miscast in the Fifty Shades movies, this is a movie where I truly feel she shines and gets to show off how talented she actually is. Jeff Bridges has a truly heartbreaking monologue where he discusses the fact that his memory is going. But, the true standout of the film is easily Chris Hemsworth. Hemsworth is the main antagonist of the film, a charismatic cult leader named Billy Lee. Hemsworth himself is a charismatic actor, and he uses this to his advantage to turn in a truly sinister performance. The set design is solid too, and a lot of this comes from Drew Goddard’s directing. The movie’s visual flair truly pops. The hotel was built on the state line between Nevada and California. The movie also makes sure to flesh its characters out as much as possible. You are given every reason to either love these characters, hate them, or—in some cases—a little bit of both. I mentioned in my review for the movie Terminal that that movie felt like Vaughn Stein copying Tarantino’s style while only understanding it at surface level, and not having the talent to make the movie as clever as Stein clearly thought it was. In my eyes, Bad Times at the El Royale is Terminal fully realized. It has the talent, charisma, writing, directing, and style to pull a Tarantino-esque film nearly perfectly. 

10 / 10