Hotel Artemis

I have a bad feeling about this. ‘This’ in this instance meaning the future as depicted in movies. It’s never all that good; in fact, most of the time, it’s depicted as downright wretched. So it is here. That in and of itself is not a reason to pan a movie, but it had better not the only thing in the presentation—there’d better be something else on display to make the audience feel like they should care about what’s going on in that still-to-come dystopia. This outing, for instance, nearly gets there with some likable characters, including Jodie Foster doing her game best to provide some major depth to a story that, all in all, is lacking in the dimension department. A lot of what goes on here seems oddly detached. It probably doesn’t help that everyone on the screen/scene is, at best, morally ambiguous. Pay attention you storytellers out there: goodness still matters. It’s hard to root for criminals from the jump, and even when they display some redeeming qualities, that doesn’t automatically get a spectator cheering. At least this film has brevity going for it; it clocks in at a tidy hour and a half, and that helps raise some goodwill where the rest of the proceedings fall short. You can check in here, if you like; just don’t expect five-star accommodations.