‘The Royal Hotel’ Shows What It Takes to Survive in the Outback

October 3, 2023

jmunney Cinema, Movie Reviews , , , , , , , , 1 Comment

Will they ever be Royals? (CREDIT: Neon/Screenshot)

Starring: Julia Garner, Jessica Henwick, Hugo Weaving, Toby Wallace, Ursula Yovich, Daniel Henshall, James Frecheville

Director: Kitty Green

Running Time: 91 Minutes

Rating: R for Maximum Drunken Boorishness

Release Date: October 6, 2023 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: If there’s one major lesson to be learned from The Royal Hotel, it’s that planning ahead is essential. Hanna (Julia Garner) and Liv (Jessica Henwick) would certainly agree after everything they go through. They’re vacationing in Australia, but then the cash runs out and they need to find a job. Alas, the only gig they can land on such short notice is bartending at the titular watering hole, which is located in the remotest part of the Outback. The owner (an unrecognizable Hugo Weaving) is an alcoholic nightmare, while the patrons have a bit too much of a knack for misogyny and violence. The girls do have at least one ally in the form of Carol (Ursula Yovich), the bar’s gruff second-in-command. But it soon becomes clear that they really only have themselves to rely on if they want to make it out of this place alive.

What Made an Impression?: A Descent Into Hell: The realism of The Royal Hotel can lull you into a false sense of security. The joint isn’t exactly inviting, or even really pleasant at all. But if you’re working there, it feels like any old awful job that you just have to survive, and at least Hanna and Liv can count on a preordained end point. But they’re like those proverbial frogs in burning water. Because soon enough, the folks who seemed friendly have revealed their Hyde-like alter egos, while the run-of-the-mill jerks have turned into psychopaths, and everyone genuinely on their side has disappeared. The normal rules of society don’t apply in a place this isolated. Nothing particularly supernatural happens, but it’s like a waking nightmare that feels like it couldn’t possibly be real when you reckon with it after the fact.
Killer Ending: Downbeat thrillers like this one can be a tough sell if you’re someone who likes to have fun when you go to the movies. I was certainly prepared to leave The Royal Hotel with a pit in my stomach, especially since Kitty Green and Julia Garner’s last collaboration didn’t exactly offer much in the way of relief. But this time around, they opt for a much more cathartic conclusion. It’s outrageous in its own way, and fittingly so considering the taste of hell that the leads have to swallow. The last line is one for the ages, and if you check into The Royal Hotel, chances are you’ll be pumping your fist or raising a toast in solidarity on the way out.

The Royal Hotel is Recommended If You Like: Thelma and Louise, That one GIF from Waiting to Exhale, Discovering resilience that you never knew you had

Grade: 4 out of 5 Broken Glasses

This Is a Movie Review: ‘Mortal Engines’ is Full of Striking Visuals and Admirable Ambition But a Little Pedestrian in the Execution

December 13, 2018

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CREDIT: Mark Pokorny/Universal Pictures

This review was originally published on News Cult in December 2018.

Starring: Hera Hilmar, Robert Sheehan, Hugo Weaving, Jihae, Leila George, Ronan Raftery, Patrick Malahide, Stephen Lang

Director: Christian Rivers

Running Time: 128 Minutes

Rating: PG-13 for Guns, Knives, and Giant Metal Gears

Release Date: December 14, 2018

It’s not very often that you encounter a premise as fresh as that of Mortal Engines. In a dystopian future in which society has rebuilt itself following a planet-destroying war, cities are mobile, with the larger populations swallowing up smaller settlements as they chug along the land. Also, there’s a bizarre reference to the Minions of Despicable Me fame. The opening segment is invigorating, as the facially disfigured Hester Shaw (Hera Hilmar) gets consumed  into London and attempts to assassinate Thaddeus Valentine (Hugo Weaving), head of the Guild of Historians. The clanking machinery and whirring gears are stunningly realized, bizarre but never quite disorienting. With a script by the Lord of the Rings team and a steampunk aesthetic, the pedigree and look are familiar, but with a first-time director in Christian Rivers (the storyboard artist for most of Jackson’s films) and a cast mostly made up of little-knowns, the vibe at first glance is wholly fresh.

Alas, after that kickoff, Mortal Engines mostly relies on tired fantasy tropes. There are discoveries about the truth of one’s parentage, flashbacks to growing up with a makeshift guardian, a long and arduous journey for characters to complete a mission and learn more about themselves along the way, and a big climactic battle in which all the chickens come home to roost. That formula can still work in this day and age, but it is just not particularly compelling in this case. At least there are some unique visual flourishes here and there to tide us over.

There is also plenty of room to ponder the philosophical query of what geographically defines a city in its most fundamental terms. If cities are constantly moving around, then what are they traversing across? Immobile cities, or something that we don’t even have a conception of in 2018? Of course, the cities of today are also moving, insofar as Earth is always orbiting around the Sun. Rivers and his cast and crew may very well have benefited from really poring more deeply into the quandary of relativity of location.

Mortal Engines is Recommended If You Like: Steampunk, Ambition above all else

Grade: 2.5 out of 5 Traction Cities