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Hotel Artemis, a dystopian science fiction/neo-noir crime film, follows the Nurse (Jodie Foster, in her first acting role since 2013), who runs a secret hotel/hospital for criminals in a war-torn future Los Angeles, on what she thinks is ‘just another Wednesday.’ As riots for water access rock the city, the Nurse must juggle the needs of her patients (among them an assassin, an arms dealer, and the crime kingpin of Los Angeles) and the rules of the Hotel, with a devastating realisation about the past she’s been running from for twenty years.

‘Just another Wednesday’ begins with riots and looting, and then the film keeps raising the stakes, over and over again. Key developments are cleverly foreshadowed in seemingly throwaway dialogue, and despite plenty of archetypical tropes and moments where the characters’ stock outlines show through the excellent acting, this is a fairly smart movie. Sterling K. Brown and Sofia Boutella are particularly good, but Dave Bautista holds his own very well against Jodie Foster, with whom he shares most of his scenes. Jeff Goldblum continues to live his best life and swaggers through his scenes with typical Jeff Goldbluminess — honestly, give him blue lipstick and he could still be playing Thor: Ragnarok’s Grandmaster.

The Thor comparison is apt as Hotel Artemis feels like the best comics movie you’ve ever seen. There’s slick, stylised camerawork full of a lot of tight close-ups that linger lovingly on some details (Jodie Foster’s makeup-aged face slack with painful memories, a woman’s hand pulling a chunk of shattered ceramic from an armchair, details of the hotel) or skim thoughtlessly over others (the Nurse’s posted and often-referred-to rules list) in a manner that seems to hint at the illustrated panels of a Watchmen-esque graphic novel. Some of the dialogue, too, is comic book-esque (“I’m a professional, but this woman, she’s the business,” for one), but as it turns out, Hotel Artemis doesn’t have that source material it seems to be highlighting so beautifully. It’s an original story from screenwriter and first-time director Drew Pierce. When was the last time we got such a cool, original genre film? Pacific Rim? The Matrix?

Overall, style trumps substance, but the style is so good that I didn’t mind at all. I enjoyed Hotel Artemis a great deal, and although it’s certainly not Oscar bait, it’ll make an excellent summer night-out movie to enjoy.