I saw Bad Times at the El Royale after an hour long power-nap after an 8 hour overnight shift and never did my eyes close longer than absolutely necessary. Clocking in at about 2 hours and 20 minutes, El Royale goes by surprisingly fast and has great pacing. I had only seen the original trailer, so I had only the notion that some shit goes down at a neon themed hotel and I'm glad I didn't learn anything more before I saw it. Royale has some mysteries that come to unexpected ends and some legitimately shocking twists. The visuals were great and the soundtrack does a great job at juxtaposing opposite emotions in scenes. The entire cast was great, which is surprising because I hate it when John Hamm does accents, but every actor was stellar. The one issue I have it the wildly inconsistent tone. We whip from drama to action to melodrama to thriller to vague comedy and back to drama over and over again. With the constant flashbacks and change of focus, it each new scene did keep me on my toes unsure of what emotion the next scene was going to attack, but I got emotional whiplash from the constant tonal shifts. I was originally attracted to Royale because of its neon color palette and while the entire movie feels pretty "neon" it's a surprisingly dark movie. Bad Times at the El Royale is going to be one of those films that people will discover 3 or 4 years from now and really appreciate, but the severe lack of marketing is really depriving audiences of a great movie. There's some depth if your one of those that likes to pick apart and analyze everything, but its superficial level was more than enough for me.