Hotel Artemis (2018)

HOTEL ARTEMIS  (2018)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Drew Pearce
    Jodie Foster, Sterling K. Brown, Sofia Boutella,
    Jeff Goldblum, Bryan Tyree Henry, Jenny Slate,
    Zachary Quinto, Dave Bautista, Charlie Day
"Hotel Artemis" marks the first time Jodie Foster has looked old in a movie. It's also her first big-screen appearance since "Elysium" in 2013. It's a thriller set ten years in the future, with Jodie as the resident nurse practitioner in a sort of urgent care clinic for criminals, operating out of a run-down Los Angeles hotel. There's a riot going on outside, and a handful of desperate characters have already checked in or soon will, to have Jodie patch up their bullet wounds. There are rules in a place like the Artemis. There have to be. And the movie ends up being at least partly about what happens when the system starts to break down and the rules no longer apply. On top of that, Foster's character (shades of "Nim's Island") is agoraphobic and hasn't been out of the hotel in years. It's a satisfying action-and-suspense piece with topical references to a border wall to the south and a collapsing environment (the riots are over the high price of water). The storytelling's inventive, and there's a shabby elegance to the set design. Best of all, there's Foster, who's both tough and funny, vulnerable and a force to be reckoned with. Wrinkles and all, she commands the screen, and you can tell she's having a blast doing it. Now in her mid-50s, with a lifetime of movie work under her belt already, Jodie could be just getting started.