Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Hotel Artemis’ on Max, A Structure with Many Stories and High Vacancy

Before Rian Johnson’s Knives Out series turned ensemble casting into a game of social media salivation, Drew Pearce assembled quite a crew to help realize his directorial debut Hotel Artemis (now streaming on Max). From award winners like Jodie Foster and Sterling K. Brown to television scene-stealers Jenny Slate and Charlie Day – plus Jeff freakin’ Goldblum and Dave Bautista. Can any structure hold up all this talent?

HOTEL ARTEMIS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: In a 2028 Los Angeles that looks like a real hellscape, nurse Jean Thomas (Jodie Foster) has converted the titular dwelling into a covert hospital serving the city’s criminal underworld. On the fateful night of June 21, a number of competing interests converge on her territory. First, there’s bank robber Sherman (Sterling K. Brown) bringing his wounded brother and accomplice (Brian Tyree Henry) in for treatment. Elsewhere, a motor-mouthed arms dealer (Charlie Day) and terse young assassin (Sofia Boutella) spar. Then, the hotel’s owner (Jeff Goldblum) and his son (Zachary Quinto) show up demanding preferential treatment. As the nurse tries to keep juggling all these balls, she’ll discover new information about the grief that led her to lead such a solitary, confined life inside the hotel.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Think of Tarantino-esque dialogue and violence à la Reservoir Dogs with the ensemble spirit of a hotel-set saga like Bad Times at El Royale. It’s got a bit of the John Wick Cinematic Universe in it, too; the titular Hotel Artemis certainly recalls the way The Continental hotel chain works in Wick.

Performance Worth Watching: Everyone is really trying their hardest to end up in the Hall of Accents, but it’s the person doing the least who makes the most impact. That’s Jodie Foster, though even she isn’t even entirely innocent with her Russian-tinged dialect. Hotel Artemis is a great reminder that Foster is one of our best, even if her taste in projects isn’t always as strong as her acting talents.

Memorable Dialogue: “This hotel was built on two things,” states Jodie Foster’s nurse at the jump, “man’s fundamental avarice, and trust.” She’ll be proven right.

Sex and Skin: The only contact between bodies and instruments comes at the nurse’s guidance.

Our Take: Filmmaker Drew Pearce, who had previously written for the Iron Man and Mission: Impossible series, is no slouch. The stylized dialogue in Hotel Artemis crackles and zips along nicely. But it’s missing a big idea or overarching thematic structure that can help tie everything together. The overqualified cast feels at sea delivering the lines and having them vanish into thin air.

Pearce is aiming for a futuristic Chinatown with the backdrop of water privatization in the City of Angeles, but the film dawdles in no man’s land without more space given to exploring the setting. He’s done no favors by what appears to be a budget well below what he needed to realize his vision. The film’s constriction to largely a single location doesn’t signal claustrophobia so much as it signals constrained producorial purse strings.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Hotel Artemis has all the pieces in place for something special but can’t quite seem to connect any of the dots. Despite not being all that memorable, it could actually stand to be longer than its 93-minute runtime if that meant a little bit more character development or world-building exposition could add some dimension to Pearce’s quippy script.

Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based freelance film journalist. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared on Slashfilm, Slant, The Playlist, and many other outlets. Some day soon, everyone will realize how right he is about Spring Breakers.