And I mean, why shouldn't it? This film has all the needed ingredients: a quirky story, dialogues with witty words, a trending cast old and young, unmotivated violence and mental sickness galore. It even has a black female lead character and some badass retro score! So why does Bad Times at the El Royale sound so flat at the end?
I bet the writer/director Draw Goddard has envisioned himself here as a new Tarantino, making something like a mix of all his oldschool films. If some machine AI algorithm tried to pick out the key components of Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction, it would find all of them here. But there was something the robotic mind was still unable to extract from the works of the young genius: a tiny little thing called fun.
This film is just not fun. The convoluted intro drags, the characters feel invented, and the whole chemistry forced onto us. While the Tarantino stories were sick fun, their "fun" part prevailed to a degree when everything else, even the disgusting and otherwise shocking stuff, becomes fun as well. It's obvious that Quentin's guys have the time of their lives in front of the camera, enjoying every second of that bizarre masquerade, and that feeling transgresses the screen and makes you watch the ending credits with a light heart and a smile on your face.
Bad Times, however, are just bad at being easy-going, and that unyielding seriousness, combined with more than two hours of running time, just wears you out towards the apogee, where at least something lively starts happening. Unfortunately, Chris Hemsworth's guy is simply not fit to be a sick puppy he tries to portray, not with those pecs he boasts so blatantly and those straight looks that make him such good Thor. He's no Steve Buscemi, and definitely no Samuel L. Jackson. So whatever drama he tried to peddle at the film's finale, it was way less fiery than the El Royale itself.
Maybe if the film didn't try so hard to be so off the charts, it would actually be a decent drama/thriller. If it didn't try to be funny too, it could actually manage to pull off the serious part well enough. But, just like Billy Lee had preached to his devout following, Bad Times refused to pick just one side, just one color. And in that multi-layered gamble it started, it has lost. What can I say, bad times indeed.
I bet the writer/director Draw Goddard has envisioned himself here as a new Tarantino, making something like a mix of all his oldschool films. If some machine AI algorithm tried to pick out the key components of Reservoir Dogs, Jackie Brown and Pulp Fiction, it would find all of them here. But there was something the robotic mind was still unable to extract from the works of the young genius: a tiny little thing called fun.
This film is just not fun. The convoluted intro drags, the characters feel invented, and the whole chemistry forced onto us. While the Tarantino stories were sick fun, their "fun" part prevailed to a degree when everything else, even the disgusting and otherwise shocking stuff, becomes fun as well. It's obvious that Quentin's guys have the time of their lives in front of the camera, enjoying every second of that bizarre masquerade, and that feeling transgresses the screen and makes you watch the ending credits with a light heart and a smile on your face.
Bad Times, however, are just bad at being easy-going, and that unyielding seriousness, combined with more than two hours of running time, just wears you out towards the apogee, where at least something lively starts happening. Unfortunately, Chris Hemsworth's guy is simply not fit to be a sick puppy he tries to portray, not with those pecs he boasts so blatantly and those straight looks that make him such good Thor. He's no Steve Buscemi, and definitely no Samuel L. Jackson. So whatever drama he tried to peddle at the film's finale, it was way less fiery than the El Royale itself.
Maybe if the film didn't try so hard to be so off the charts, it would actually be a decent drama/thriller. If it didn't try to be funny too, it could actually manage to pull off the serious part well enough. But, just like Billy Lee had preached to his devout following, Bad Times refused to pick just one side, just one color. And in that multi-layered gamble it started, it has lost. What can I say, bad times indeed.