It's almost like Writer-Director Drew Pearce watched "John Wick" and was enamored with "The Continental" Hotel subplot and decided that he could do a whole movie around a hotel, but this time it's actually a hospital for criminals. Add in a near-future setting of it being in 2028, show modern-future tech for the world building elements, set up some established rules for the hotel-hospital to give the premise some neat lore to it's own mythology, and then put in some colorful characters with broadly defined back stories. That's a recipe for an enjoyable movie right? For some sure, but for me...?
Can I just say that this is a mixed bag of things that I thought were cool, and many other things that I didn't care for at all. I like the whole premise of this hotel-hospital for criminals, set in a huge LA riot. That's cool. What's suppose to draw us into this movie much more however are the characters, and in all honesty, they didn't interest me that much. Maybe Jodie Foster's character has the most development that I actually paid some attention to, but that's really about it.
Essentially, the story is as expected as can be, and relies a lot on just the plot ideas to win people over. It pandered a lot to the audience by not really taking many bold risks, with the hopes that some familiar plot tropes are enough to satisfy people. There is an overall story arc from beginning to the end though, so it's not like they just decided to throw a series of fan-service and hoped that worked; some will argue that's exactly what they did. The cast are good enough in their roles, but that's not saying a lot.
I can imagine "Hotel Artemis" will find a following for what was shown in the movie. The world building alone could justify sequels for this too. The main thing that goes against this film however is the overall derivative feeling, the lack of a truly engaging story, and how it all just felt like a disposable product that will just as easily be forgotten hours after watching it. Too bad. It could have been something special.
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