Bad Times at the El Royale vs. Knives Out

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Two recent Christie homages, I must warn that there'll be spoilers for Knives Out. Bad Times at the El Royale had a few flaws, but it's still very entertaining and satisfying. Even if it plays safe at times, Jeff Bridges is just way too charismatic to not give it a pass. Cynthia Erivo is also pretty great, so is Hemsworth convincing as the villain and I wish Jon Hamm had more screentime. There even is a Xavier Dolan cameo. Knives Out is brilliant in every sense of the word though. A fresh take on the whodunit genre, entertaining as entertaining gets and even "solving" the mystery in the middle of the film was something that just added to the film's brilliance. I think that's interesting how Thor and Captain America both play villains in these movies. Guess I'm going with Knives Out also because it had a stronger ensemble; Bridges, Erivo, Johnson and Hemsworth were all good, but you simply can't compete with Daniel Craig, Jamie Lee Curtis, Toni Collette, Christopher Plummer, Ana de Armas, and there's so many people in this movie that's hard to name them all. And it's not like it's close or something anyways.

Bad Times at the El Royale was too bloated. Give me Knives Out.

Bad Times tries too hard to be the best Tarantino film that Tarantino never made. It seems very derivative of Pulp Fiction or The Hateful 8. Knives Out, while a throwback to older whodunnits, shows that a film can be an homage without being a pale imitation.