Hotel Artemis

(★★★✩✩)

A HOTEL that doubles as a sanctuary and field hospital for criminals – hmm, now where have we seen that before? Its principal setting may be lifted from the John Wick movies, but writer-director Drew Pearce’s Hotel Artemis is a different kettle of quirks.

It is a crime drama set in 2028, and incorporates cyberpunk and dystopian fiction into its pulpy storyline, together with extrapolations of technology and contemporary crises.

With a massive water riot threatening to rip Los Angeles apart, an assortment of crooks – played by a beguiling Sofia Boutella, an obnoxiously OTT Charlie Day, a suave Sterling K. Brown, a warped Zachary Quinto and a Grandmaster-ish Jeff Goldblum, among others – converges on the titular establishment which is run by The Nurse (Jodie Foster in her first movie role since Elysium in 2013) and her assistant/enforcer Everest (Dave Bautista).

At a lean 90 or so minutes, Hotel Artemis relegates a lot of its interesting near-future setting to background noise, and shoehorns way too many coincidences into its final act.

However, the movie scores with its quirky, mostly interesting characters (and the very capable cast) and how they handle their respective moral dilemmas.

It’s the kind of unheralded little curiosity that does not linger in cineplexes but offers a juicy little diversion from typical film fare to those who manage to catch it. – Davin Arul