Spoilers Bad Times at the El Royale Review Thread

[JD]

Bad Times at the El Royale is the new thriller written and directed by Drew Goddard, the former Daredevil showrunner, writer/director of Cabin in the Woods, and the writer of Cloverfield and The Martian. The movies follows a group of guests at an old hotel on the California/Nevada border, on what turns into a very bad night involving stolen money, murder, kidnapping, and a cult.
Cast:
Jeff Bridges as "Father Daniel Flynn"
Cynthia Erivo as Darleen Sweet
Dakota Johnson as Emily Summerspring
Cailee Speany as Rose Summerspring/"Boots"
John Hamm as "Laramie Sullivan"
Lewis Pullman as Miles Miller
Chris Hemsworth as Billy Lee

Trailer

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My thoughts:
I loved this movie, it has a great cast, interesting characters, and some surprising twists and reveals.
The whole cast gave great performances, it was especially fun seeing Chris Hemsworth play a total fucking psychopath after seeing him in nothing but heroic roles before this.
The first big surprise was how quickly they killed off Sullivan/Broadbeck, I did not expect that at all.
Another great, unexpected moment was the reveal of Miles backstory and his turn at the end. I had a bit of a silent "what?" when he said he had killed 123 people.
There a couple things that never were revealed/explained that kind of bugged me. First off, why did Rose kill the couple in Malibu? They kept showing the new stories about the murder, and then showed flashbacks to Rose after she killed them, but they never explained why she did it. I was wonder if it was possibly her and Emily's parents. I think it's pretty certain Billy Lee had something to do with it.
I was also really hoping for a reveal of who was on the film. They kept making a huge deal of who was on it, and how it was worth more than the money, but all we ever learned was that he was dead. I saw it with my mom and we both agreed it was JFK, and I thought he was with Marylin Monroe, who was saw in several photos on a wall, but she wasn't as sure about that.
It gets an A from me.

 

[stj]

I gave it a B+. I couldn't give it an A+ for two reasons. First, I blinked and missed what happened in Vietnam. It seemed like Miles went nuts and shot down all his fellow soldiers, but that couldn't be possible, the dude couldn't reload that fast. Also, the general idea that the most awful thing about Vietnam was American soldiers dying in massacres is really quite stupid and insensitive.

Second, much as I loved Cynthia Erivo, I didn't really get how that nasty little record producer really counted as the same kind of thing as Chris Hemsworth's character. Seriously, is being mean really the same thing as Billy Lee? Again, really quite stupid and insensitive. Very trendy #MeToo speech, of course.

As amazing as Cynthia Erivo was, the show was Lewis Pullman. Jeff Bridges was essential to pull off the salvation of Miles and Darleen, we wanted to believe our good friend Jeff Bridges was of course at bottom a good guy. The movie doesn't work without our nostalgic sympathy for him.

 

[JD]

No, Miles was a sniper taking out the enemy soldiers, but then a bomb went off and killed everyone but him.
I didn't really see Darleen's speech as saying that the record producer was as bad as Billy, just that deep down he was after the same thing.
In my other post, I forgot to also mention how seriously creepy Cailee Spaeny is as Rose.

 

[stj]

^^^Thanks for the clarification of the scene, which whizzed by me. I have no idea why Miles thought he killed them. The idea that the American soldiers were slaughtered in Vietnam is still embarrassingly backward. I suppose you can't expect to much from the writer of Cabin in the Woods and the Daredevil torture saga.

But I have to strenuously disagree: The movie really does equate the producer's oppression with Billy Lee's enormities. It seems to me you're reluctant to accept it because it's preposterous. But I believe it's right there on screen.

I like hardware, and I jones for the soundtrack on CD.

 

[JD]

I'm not "reluctant to accept it", I just don't agree that is what she was saying.
As for the Vietnam thing, I don't see what's so ridiculous about a bomb going off and killing a bunch of soldiers, I'm pretty sure they used bombs in Vietnam.

 

[stj]

No bomb crater, no bodies with clothing blown off, no stray limbs, no burns marks, no smoke. Or at least any of that was so fleeting I missed that too. I was trying to see if the bodies were Vietnamese, I don't think any were, but I'm not even sure any were African-American.

The flashbacks for Dock/Father Flynn; Emily and Rose/Boots; Miles were all about the key moments that made them who they were when they walked into the bad times at El Royale and why they made the choices they did, what kind of redemption they need and what mattered the most. They were the road that ended in that place that night. Why would the flashbacks for Darleen Sweet be any different? Except bad writing, I mean. (No, the unambiguous good guy and the unambiguous villain don't need flashbacks, because they weren't at a crossroads.)

 

[JD]

Darleen flashback's still did that, because it was the point that started her heading towards the job in Reno, and yes it was also where she first saw the same traits that she then recognized in Billy Lee.

 

[thribs]

I enjoyed it but I think Hamm’s Story shouldn’t have been first. Would have made his action ms more mysterious.
The mirrors reminded me of that X Files episode where Mulder discovers something similar.

 

[RunningValkyrie]

I'm not sure if I liked it or disliked it. But it was interesting and I'm glad I watched it.