'First Man' and 'Bad Times at the El Royale'

The claustrophobic, nuts-and-bolts approach to space travel in “First Man” stands in major contrast to what audiences typically expect from space expedition films. It resists the sweeping visuals and swelling emotions of something like “Apollo 13” to tell an intimate story of one man’s drive to a seemingly-impossible goal.

Director Damien Chazelle, fresh off his Oscar-winning “La La Land,” uses the insanely small quarters of Gemini and Apollo spacecrafts to emphasize the solitude of his subject matter — astronaut Neil Armstrong, played with predictable understatement by Ryan Gosling. The film depicts Armstrong as a committed, perhaps obsessive man who lays aside personal relationships (and his own grief) to pursue the moon, but Chazelle doesn’t forget to examine the cost, particularly on his children and wife (played by Claire Foy, doing excellent work in a role typically marginalized in these kinds of movies).

Chazelle isn’t so much interested in unlocking the inner mind of Armstrong as he is about trying to understand what kind of focus it takes to accomplish such impossible dreams (an idea that also hinges his previous films, “Whiplash” and “La La Land”). Nevertheless, Chazelle does find some emotional hooks, particularly in how Armstrong faces the death of his young daughter early in the film.

Though impeccably crafted visually and punctuated by a propulsive sound design, don’t expect much by way of understanding rocket science in “First Man,” as Chazelle takes a more visceral approach to the action. You won’t understand, for example, how Armstrong manages to land an experimental plane that bounces off the atmosphere, but you’ll get to taste the terror of being inside a cockpit that’s careening uncontrollably back to Earth.

It’s best to look at “First Man” as a narrowly-focused character study rather than a dramatization of the event’s cultural influence, though the movie includes just enough of the historical climate for it to add perspective to Armstrong’s journey. Despite some controversy about the movie omitting a scene in which the astronauts plant the American flag on the surface of the moon, the movie includes a gorgeous shot with the flag on the moon, that, arguably, conveys the desired message better.

Chazelle includes very little “surface time” in the film anyway, as it’s the part of the story most of us know all too well. In this climax, “First Man” also makes some bold visual choices that strike at what Chazelle hopes to show about Armstrong. It tries an emotional beat one would expect in more traditional biopics, but the way it’s handled, coupled with the lack of convention beforehand, gives “First Man” a powerful punctuation mark.

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Whereas “First Man” packs about 10 years into its 2 hour and 20 minute run time, the stylish noir “Bad Times at the El Royale” takes the same run time to spend a single evening at a worn-down roadside motel. Despite a few colorful performances, the movie doesn’t offer enough intrigue to justify its stay.

A duffel bag of money and a secret camera serve as the major motivators for seven strangers at the motel, including Jeff Bridges as a priest, Jon Hamm as an oily traveling salesman and Dakota Johnson as a short-tempered traveler who refuses to sign the guest book. Chris Hemsworth appears too as (redacted), but the movie plays best when it focuses on Bridges and standout Cynthia Erivo as a struggling lounge singer on her way to a gig.

“Bad Times” is written and directed by Drew Goddard, who made the masterful genre-spinning “The Cabin in the Woods,” and this new film has been marketed as a twisty genre-breaker as well. Really though, the plot of “Bad Times” is fairly conventional and its convoluted narrative choices don’t offer much payoff. Yes, a couple of characters aren’t who they say they are, and a couple more die off early, but it’s a story that could have been told just as easily in about 90 minutes.

At least the movie looks great, Bridges seems to be having fun, and Erivo should break out as a major star. So not just bad times at the “El Royale.”

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Tyler Wilson can be reached at twilson@cdapress.com.