Written and Directed by Drew Goddard

Starring Jeff Bridges, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth, Cynthia Erivo

Walking out at the end of Bad Times at the El Royale and all I can think about is what the hell happened. What happened to this movie, with such a good cast, and a filmmaker who has shown his worth, to have led to such a slow let down? After a really nice opening with Nick Offerman, and even better setup for the film’s first act, I thought for sure this would be one of the best movies of the year. But then it drags, oh my god does it drag, and shoves some boring flashbacks and reveals that destroy the experience.

At 2 hours and 22 minutes, Bad Times goes way beyond overstaying its welcome, and by the end begs the audience to leave before its final minutes. Such a loss, there are some truly great moments in the beginning, but then the problems appear, and they are plentiful. Specifically, the best and most developed character is killed far too quickly, and we are left with scenes repeating things we know about the others. There’s a lot of singing that doesn’t need to be there, and all those fucking flashbacks. Mostly brief, some are only a blink, others take a whole scene or two, none are necessary. The Hateful Eight, another movie about strangers trapped in a place together, pulled all this off so much better. Tarantino had reasons for them all to be there, they all had secrets that were interesting and worth hiding. The major issue with Bad Times is that the secrets of those stuck in the hotel aren’t all that great to begin with. It’s the whole J.J. Abrams mystery box, and here the buildup is neat, but the payoff nonexistent. You can guess what’s buried under the floorboards.

Here we have a movie about a bunch of strangers coincidentally around each other on the same night, and no one is who they say they are. The best movies in this field always have the best reveals, with the best setups. Meaning when you find out certain things your mind is blown, your perspective changes, and you can’t stop watching. Usually I point out there are too many characters in a story like this, and not enough time to spend with them all. Bad Times has the opposite problem oddly, with 7 people and that 141 min runtime I couldn’t believe how bored and uninterested I was in the later parts of the story. This is another one of those should have been 90 minute exciting thrillers that loses you because it’s just too long. But let’s get on with it.

The El Royale hotel is on top of the border of Nevada and California. Outside a singer named Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo) arrives around the same time as the priest Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges). Is he called Flynn because of Tron? Nevermind. The two have a sweet conversation about the funny border that the hotel lies on and enter together. Inside is Laramie (Jon Hamm) a quirky vacuum salesman who already seems to know his way around. Hamm is wonderful in this role, with an accent that I never thought would be convincing, but surprised me. Laramie speaks at length with them since the clerk is no where to be found.

And when they do find him (a young boy bell named Miles) the point is reiterated that the guests can either choose a room in Nevada or California. At some point Emily shows up (Dakota Fanning) although you don’t know her name, just that she’s some sort of hippie as Laramie puts it. One by one they each purchase a room and sign in at the desk. The priest eyes the rooms outside carefully. Miles reminds everyone that the coffee they are drinking is 25 cents (it’s 1970). Laramie insists he be in Room 1.  The hippie writes “Fuck You” as her name on the sheet. Then a coin flip, “I’ll take Room 4”. Hard cut to black.

The setup is there. From here on the movie transitions from part to part with goofy title screens like “Room Four”, and then we find out what is currently happening in room 4, and maybe what has also happened before. This was so effective at first but then becomes infuriating. You’ll see why, oh boy will you see.

We get a strong reveal involving Laramie, but it leads to an extended sequence that could have been cut in half. Why is there so much singing? I’m all for slow burns and films taking their time to build suspense, but right here is where the warning signs began. The lengthened, unneeded scenes trying to explain far too much only get worse from here on out. And why the hippie girl is there is pretty lame. And the kidnapping here is dumb because what it was trying to prevent ends up happening anyway for dumb reasons. And I just didn’t like Cynthia Erivo all that much. You could have replaced her with any other actress and I’d probably not have noticed.

Since this story involves a lot of spoilers (mostly weak ones) I’ll depart from talking about it too much. I did end up liking the relationship between Flynn and Darlene. But then Chris Hemsworth just shows up and he’s so fucking useless in this movie that it hurts.

You’d think a movie about a hotel with a lot of secrets and sketchy going ons would be more fascinating. But it’s all stuff we’ve seen before. And the movie’s biggest secret is never answered, although it hints at being a famous president/politician. And did we really need that story involving bestiality told outta nowhere? Was this Drew Goddard completing the wolf scene from Cabin in the Woods?

There’s great scenes and moments in Bad Times at the El Royale, although they are relegated in its earlier passages. Several people walked out of our theater tonight, but I didn’t much blame them. The movie runs out of gas so fucking fast and devolves into long and boring conversations and flashbacks with characters who just aren’t enough to keep it going. The movie was written and directed by Drew Goddard, who is a close friend of Joss Whedon’s. They had made The Cabin in the Woods together, which of course is a fucking spectacular experience. Goddard is also the showrunner on Netflix’s Daredevil, so he knows what he’s doing. So you see how I thought this movie was going somewhere. You can watch the first half hour of it and understand why I thought it would be great. Then you can turn it off before the half way point and do something better with your life. Had they only known to cut out all that damn singing, and removed Hemsworth’s scenes entirely, and write a better mystery and journey for these mysterious strangers, rather than contrived connections. I’ve been slacking again at going to the movies, and I chose this of all that’s out right now to spend my time. I could have missed this movie and not missed a thing. Shit, looks like I’ll have to go see A Star is Born now.

Bad Times indeed.