Creative Differences Episode 188: Throwback Thursday – Thor: Ragnarok

On our newest Throwback Thursday, we talked about the best Thor movie and debated about whether or not the first two are any good.

Creative Differences Episode 77: Fancast Friday – DC’s Justice League/JSA (Part 1)

Aliens, magic, and bird people from space/Egypt? Comic books are fun.

Movie Review: Bad Times at the El Royale

I saw the trailer and it sparked my curiosity, and even my interest a little bit. I like Jeff Bridges, Chris Hemsworth, and Cabin in the Woods, so why not, right? Also I like Tom Holland and Lewis Pullman kinda looks like who you get when you can’t get Tom Holland. He’s really good though, but we’ll get to that later. So yeah, no reasons to not see this one. And now here we are, I’ve seen the movie aaaaaaaaaand…yeah it was pretty cool.

“Pretty cool? Pretty cool?! Is that all you’re gonna give us?!”

No, just relax and we can get into this.

Bad Times at the El Royale is the story of some strangers, most of which are pretty shady, who all meet by coincidence at a hotel (that’s kind of a motel too). The hotel is on the border of Nevada and California. So half the rooms are in either state. Remember that, cause it won’t matter at all later. Also, this isn’t a spoiler review, so even if it did matter, I probably wouldn’t go into detail as to why.

Anyway, let’s talk about all these strangers, most of which are pretty shady.

• Father Daniel Flynn aka Dock: Jeff Bridges’ character is a priest, unless you’ve seen the trailer. Ok, I don’t know if it counts as a spoiler if I give away something in the trailer that the trailer shouldn’t have given away. Whatever. Anyway, Father Flynn is shady, but he’s a likable guy. The most heartfelt moments pretty much all involve his character in some capacity. The movie did a good job of playing with my notions of how shady he actually was. Once we learn all about him, I came away liking him very much. Also, Jeff Bridges is great in this, but who didn’t see that coming?
• Darlene Sweet: Darlene is a Black singer. There’s not a whole lot else to her character. She sings and she’s Black, so she stands out. She also stands out by being surprisingly not shady in this movie of shady characters. I’m not saying she’s dull or anything. She’s pretty interesting and I was rooting for her, but her story doesn’t deal with a lot more than being a Black female singer in 1960s(?) America. She also stands out because of a great performance by Cynthia Erivo, who (or whom?) I can’t wait to see in Widows.
• Emily Summerspring: Of all the strangers we meet in the introduction scene, she might be the shadiest. She’s kind of a dick for no reason and she enters in a way that draws a lot of attention despite acting as if she wants isolation. As the story goes on, she somehow gets worse while her actions become a bit more justified. Justified is a strong word here. We see why she’s doing the things she’s doing, but most of them aren’t really justified (or even sensible) given her situation.
• Rose Summerspring: I might as well put the sisters together, right? Rose is pretty detestable. I went from briefly feeling bad for her to just wanting someone to shoot her, to really wanting someone to shoot her. Moving on.
• Seymour ‘Laramie’ Sullivan: Had to take that name straight from Wikipedia, because until now I didn’t know what he was saying right before Sullivan. And seeing it written down in the movie didn’t help. He’s shady, but more by association than by intent or nature. He’s actually a pretty well intentioned guy. When we first meet him, he comes off as obnoxious and callous, but something about Jon Hamm’s charisma makes that tolerable. For a bit. Then it keeps going, he brings up Darlene being “a negro”, and he works on my patience.
• Miles Miller: Ever wonder what would happen if Tom Holland played Norman Bates? Miles is the Tom Holland looking concierge at the El Royale. He’s only as shady as the hotel requires him to be, and honestly he’s pretty adorable by comparison to his present company. Except Darlene. She’s an angel. Miles consistently hints at something super shady about himself that, when it’s revealed is somehow simultaneously disappointing and shocking. I can’t explain without spoilers, so wait for The Reshoots review coming whenever we get that done. But yeah, Tom Holland Lewis Pullman was great. I hope to see him more.
• Billy Lee: “But what about shirtless Chris Hemsworth???” Calm down, we’re getting there. Billy Lee, played by shirtless Chris Hemsworth, is a crazy guy who shows up toward the end. Crazy might not be the right word. Like, he’s definitely suffering from some sort of mental condition, but not in the way that Rose is. Like, at what point does narcissism stop being just a character flaw and start being a personality disorder? Wherever that is, Billy’s there. He’s definitely one of the most interesting parts of the movie, though. Chris Hemsworth stole the show toward the end. And no, it’s not because he’s shirtless for a lot of his scenes. Stop objectifying actors in Hollywood, y’all.

I spent too long on these characters, but hey, the movie is largely character driven. It’s also story driven, but with a bunch of unrelated stories that converge when somehow, four guests show up at the same time to a hotel/motel that is so dead that it has one employee who is doing none of his jobs when the guests arrive. The Krusty Krab has more workers than the El Royale.

But anyway, the story is told through a lot of flashbacks. That was ok for a while, but once we got toward the end I was kind of annoyed that we had to stop and go back a couple more times. Like, have you ever been to a meeting, seminar, conference, or something that started with an ice breaker? I assume if someone shows up two hours in, the people in charge wouldn’t start the ice breaker back up again for every late comer. That’s what this felt like. I get that the story necessitated it due to how it was giving information thus far, but I just wish the story was told in a way that didn’t need that.

I’m not sure if the aforementioned structure is the main reason the movie felt so long, but it would have been nice if they cut it down a bit. A few of the scenes felt like they went on just a tad bit too long.

Slightly annoying structure aside, the events of the story did keep me interested for the most part. Some of the characters had much more interesting backstories than others. For example, Father Flynn’s story (which I won’t dive into here) is a lot more captivating than Darlene’s desire to sing. But the characters all come together in a way that provides some good tension pretty much throughout.

Naturally, a story like this raises a lot of questions. And with those questions comes the satisfaction of finding the answers. Some of the answers are less than satisfying, and some of the answers don’t seem to come at all, but overall I think Goddard did a good job of keeping me intrigued, especially toward the end when everything goes wild.

tl;dr: It felt a little longer than it needs to be, but the story and characters (along with the actors playing them) were generally intriguing enough for me to enjoy it.

Rating: 7.5 out of 10