Hotel Artemis is a tough film to review. Not because its ground-breaking or strays to far from cliché and standard Hollywood filmmaking practices, but mainly because it is pretty damn forgettable. As aesthetically pleasing as the film may be, the plot is all over the place. There are several plot points which are brought up only to ever just disappear or be resolved almost instantly. The film is a brilliant example of style over substance and in the case of this film it is not done with great success, which is a shame because the films concept is an interesting one. The story of the film follows a set of criminals in a near future Los Angeles which is besieged by riots who come to stay at Hotel Artemis, a members only hotel specifically for criminals. The hotel is run by the Nurse (Jodie Foster) and follows her character as several things go wrong on this one night in the hotel which leads to her past being brought up and the rules that she holds so dear being broken.
The real strength of the film is in its aesthetics and mise en scene. The set design is easily the most interesting aspect of the film. The look and feel of the hotel and the costumes that the characters wear gives the film a retro feel despite being set in a near future dystopia. But the style of the film doesn’t seem to fit the tone on several occasions. The film has a feel of a wanna be Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) or (and I have no idea why this would be the case) Suicide Squad (2016) with its visual style and use of soundtrack. However, the soundtrack feels particularly off with the rest of the tone of the film and it kind of dragged me out of the world it was trying to create.
The story and characters are very forgettable in this film. Although none of the performances are bad, not one person really steals any scenes they are in. The closest anyone comes is Dave Bautista who plays Everest, but this is mainly due to his size (and my affinity to WWE). Jodie Foster also performs well as the Nurse, but she does not give a special performance. The rest of the characters are pretty much forgettable, but I feel like this is more down to the script than the performances because no one is bad in the film. The most unforgiveable part of the film is the waste of Jeff Goldblum, who plays the Wolf King and is seemingly only in the film to have Jeff Goldblum in the film. His character plays into the story arc of the Nurse but this story arc is so pointless to the film and feels like it is just in there in order to fill out time. It involves the Nurse finding out more information about her dead son, but it is a plot point that has no effect on the main plot and is barley resolved more than it just kind of goes away.
It is this plot point that really brings the film down. However, the aesthetics of the film are a redeeming a factor and is something that director Drew Pearce can be pleased with. It is his first full length film as a Director and it is not a terrible first stab at directing, but I feel like Pearce attempted to show he had a style that people could praise rather than make a good story driven film that isn't as forgettable as the film unfortunately is because the concept is an intriguing one.