But at two hours and 21 minutes, this 1969-set period thriller is taxingly slow and almost oppressively self-indulgent, constantly backtracking and replaying already-drawn-out scenes from multiple perspectives. It’s stylish, yes, and plenty atmospheric - a cocktail that’s equal parts 1930s pulp fiction, ’40s film noir, and ’60s Technicolor, plus a splash of Stanley Kubrick’s 1956 “The Killing” - with a phenomenal soul-music soundtrack and mesmerizing performances across the board from an all-aces cast. The biggest surprise - a shocker, really, given what fans have come to expect from Goddard six years after his deranged big-screen debut, “The Cabin in the Woods” - is that “Bad Times” isn’t very good. Goddard’s second feature arrives shrouded in secrecy, as if to preserve some great surprise the knowledge of which will ruin the experience for audiences (in that respect, read on at your own risk).
That’s also true for writer-director Drew Goddard, a key contributor to the cult-beloved “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and the quasi-occult “Lost.” Groundbreaking as those shows may have been, his ambitions outstrip his abilities this time around.
