7.3 | / 10 |
Users | 3.8 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Seven strangers, each with a secret to bury, meet at a run-down hotel in Lake Tahoe in 1960s California. Over the course of a fateful night, they all get one last shot at redemption before everything goes wrong.
Starring: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Chris HemsworthDark humor | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: HEVC / H.265
Video resolution: 4K (2160p)
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1
French: Dolby Digital 5.1
English SDH, French, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (2 BDs)
Digital copy
4K Ultra HD
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 3.5 | |
Video | 5.0 | |
Audio | 5.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Grand Hotel was one of the first, if not the first,
big ensemble films in Hollywood history, with that vaunted “all star cast”, perhaps before that term had even been properly invented (or least used
very often). Grand Hotel documented the comings and goings of a coterie of folks who were either guests or employees of the titular
lodging facility, with a number of secrets being revealed along the way, and an unfolding series of interrelationships also being offered. Grand
Hotel was a huge smash in its day and ended up winning that year’s Best Picture Academy Award (almost amazingly, the film holds the
distinction of being the only Best Picture winner not to receive any other nominations in any other categories). Bad Times at the El
Royale might cheekily be described as a post-modernist deconstruction of Grand Hotel, albeit with a rather prevalent noir
undertone that is nowhere to be found in the 1932 opus. Much as the legendary Cedric Gibbons researched opulent European hotels to create a
sumptuous production design for Grand Hotel, Bad Times at the El Royale benefits from a really appealing “look” courtesy of
production designer Martin Whist, who offers what might be called a mid-century modern orgasm of sleek lines blended with a certain stylistic
overkill in things like fabrics on upholstery and wallpapers. (A making of featurette included on the Blu-ray as a supplement shows that the team
behind the picture basically “built” an entire hotel to facilitate the shoot.) But of course a film can’t rely solely on its sets and costumes, and it’s in
a wending, interlinked story that Bad Times at the El Royale really achieves some considerable energy.
The film begins with a brief
vignette that evidently takes place sometimes in the mid to late fifties, as a man arrives at the hotel, checks into a room and then begins moving
all the furniture in order to pull up the carpeting and expose the floorboards. He then begins prying those up, finally depositing a satchel
which one obviously assumes contains some cache of cash or other valuables under the floor, at which point he puts everything back where it was.
A brief interstitial segment (which is actually kind of confusing) shows the guy going outside for a moment to perhaps “cleanse” himself in the rain,
after which he lets one of his supposed cohorts into the room, a guy who summarily shoots him dead. It’s a fascinating opening segment, made
all
the more so by writer-director Drew Goddard’s choice to shoot virtually the whole thing with a ton of “unused” space in front of the action, as if
we’re watching a play taking place on a proscenium stage. And in fact a lot of Bad Times at the El Royale is almost blatantly
theatrical in terms of both story elements and its presentational style. This may not be a film for everyone
(I'm sure there will be some who feel it's a blatant Tarantino wannabe), but I have to say for me personally it
delivered some of the most viscerally exciting material I’ve watched recently.
Note: Screenshots are sourced from the 1080p Blu-ray.
Bad Times at the El Royale is presented on 4K UHD courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment with a 2160p transfer in 2.39:1. While
the 4K version of this film is hugely enjoyable, it didn't quite knock my socks off the way I frankly expected it to, which may indeed simply be
a case of misplaced expectations. While some online data suggests Dolby Vision was part of the theatrical exhibition, my Oppo displayed "only" HDR,
but that said, the palette is really quite beautifully suffused here, and there are some interesting changes on display, including a kind of slightly
desaturated, almost sepia toned, appearance in the first scenes in the hotel. Later sequences offer a much more substantially suffused looking palette,
and the uptick in fine detail levels on things as mundane as the velour encrusted wallpaper in some rooms, or even the texture of a "secret" briefcase
one character utilizes are noticeable throughout the presentation. Shadow detail is marginally if not overwhelmingly improved in some scenes
featuring a secret corridor. Grain resolves naturally throughout, with the same possible exception I noted in the review of the 1080p version, a brief
moment on a beach that looks just a little noisy.
This 4K version of Bad Times at the El Royale features a wonderfully immersive Dolby Atmos track that admittedly may not provide a ton of midair "showy" sonics, but which delivers a glut of surround activity courtesy of the many (as in many) uses of music within the film. While perhaps not at "Powell Pressburger" levels of "composed film", Goddard's use of various tunes throughout this enterprise really ups the sound design ante, and the Atmos presentation is flawless. Several jolts of energy courtesy of sudden violence also are more visceral in this presentation. Dialogue and effects are all offered with superb fidelity and no problems whatsoever.
Fox doesn't include any supplements on the 4K version of the film. The rather interesting making of featurette described in our Bad Times at the El Royale Blu-ray review is of course included on the 1080p Blu-ray in this package.
Could Bad Times at the El Royale have been tightened and provided clearer exposition with regard to at least a couple of its characters' stories? Absolutely. I for one am still unclear who was killed in a couple of flashbacks involving both Rose and Miles, the brief allusion to Darlene's recording career is just left hanging, and a whole subplot of the secret canister of film struck me as completely needless. By the time Rose is literally swinging from the chandeliers during the film's chaotic climax, I can see how some viewers will be rolling their eyes at the excess of it all. But despite these ostensible missteps, I personally found Bad Times at the El Royale a lot of fun, and it is one of the few films in my recent memory which actually managed to surprise me with regard to at least a couple of "sudden deaths". Again, this is probably not a film for everyone, but for fans of this cast and writer-director, Bad Times at the El Royale comes Recommended.
2019
2005
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2011
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2019
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1993
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Includes Beanie
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