{"id":641,"date":"2018-10-18T15:38:12","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T22:38:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/drchris.tv\/movies\/?p=641"},"modified":"2018-10-18T15:38:12","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T22:38:12","slug":"bad-times-at-the-el-royale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/drchris.tv\/movies\/2018\/10\/18\/bad-times-at-the-el-royale\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Times at the El Royale<\/em>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Set in the late 1960s, Bad Times at the El Royale<\/em> tells the story of a disparate group of strangers who come to stay at a once thriving hotel-casino straddling the Nevada-California border. No one is quite what they seem, and secrets are slowly revealed over the course of one tumultuous night.<\/p>\n

Writer-director Drew Goddard makes masterfully effective use of flashbacks and scenes replayed from different characters\u2019 points of view to tell a gripping and unexpectedly complex tale. The numerous subplots and character arcs could have easily turned into a jumbled, gimmicky mess, but Goddard maintains tight control and direction throughout. While the story gets complicated, it remains coherent.<\/p>\n

Bad Times at the El Royale<\/em> features a relatively large ensemble cast including Jeff Bridges, Chris Hemsworth, Jon Hamm, Dakota Johnson, Lewis Pullman, Cailee Spaeny, and award-winning stage performer Cynthia Erivo in her first feature film role. All of them give outstanding performances. There\u2019s not a weak link in the bunch. Hemsworth is turning out to be a much better actor than I would have given him credit for a few years ago. Props to Erivo as well. Some actors never quite manage the transition from stage to screen, but she certainly did.<\/p>\n

\"Jeff

Jeff Bridges, Jon Hamm, and Cynthia Erivo in Bad Times at the El Royale. IMDb.com<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

The setting very much evokes the era. The d\u00e9cor. The songs. The prices. I remember staying in hotels as a kid in the early 70s that actually did cost $8\/night. Everyone paid in cash. Yes, credit cards existed in the late 60s, but they weren\u2019t widely used yet. Some anachronistic details may have slipped in, but I didn\u2019t notice any.<\/p>\n

\"Chris

Chris Hemsworth and Cailee Spaeny in Bad Times at the El Royale. IMDb.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Music plays an important role in this film. Background music from a jukebox in the hotel effectively sets the tone for many of the scenes. Erivo sings several songs, some acapela, and usually in particularly tense scenes. The soundtrack powerfully supports the story without becoming overpowering.<\/p>\n

Technically, the film is brilliant. The lighting, camera angles, and camera movements are all expertly executed.<\/p>\n

\"Dakota

Dakota Johnson in Bad Times at the El Royale. IMDb.com<\/p><\/div>\n

I can usually see the ending of a movie a mile away, but that wasn\u2019t the case here. Goddard set up multiple plausible paths for the story to take. I was certainly hoping for one particular ending, but a lot of other endings were very possible, and there was no way to tell what was going to happen until the story resolved itself. And I really cared about some of the characters, which was another strong point of Goddard\u2019s film. I love it when I don\u2019t know, or at least have a pretty good idea, what\u2019s going to happen to a character I care about. It creates visceral, gut-level tension. That almost never happens with movies these days. (Upgrade<\/em><\/a> and Perfect Blue<\/em><\/a> were two welcome, recently seen examples, but Perfect Blue is 20 years old.)<\/p>\n

Great writing, great directing, great acting, and a great soundtrack combined with technical excellence make Bad Times at the El Royale<\/em> one of the best movies I\u2019ve seen all year.<\/p>\n

Overall rating: 9\/10<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Set in the late 1960s, Bad Times at the El Royale tells the story of a disparate group of strangers who come to stay at a once thriving hotel-casino straddling the Nevada-California border. No one is quite what they seem, and secrets are slowly revealed over the course of one tumultuous night. Writer-director Drew Goddard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[282,288,109,289,286,283,285,284,287],"class_list":["post-641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movies","tag-bad-times-at-the-el-royale","tag-cailee-spaeny","tag-chris-hemsworth","tag-cynthia-erivo","tag-dakota-johnson","tag-drew-goddard","tag-jeff-bridges","tag-jon-hamm","tag-lewis-pullman"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/drchris.tv\/movies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/drchris.tv\/movies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/drchris.tv\/movies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drchris.tv\/movies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drchris.tv\/movies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/drchris.tv\/movies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":650,"href":"http:\/\/drchris.tv\/movies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions\/650"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drchris.tv\/movies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/647"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/drchris.tv\/movies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drchris.tv\/movies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/drchris.tv\/movies\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}