El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie Review - 7 Ups & 2 Downs
Ups...
7. It's A Fittingly Low-Key Epilogue To Breaking Bad
The smartest decision Gilligan made when writing this movie was not trying to compress an action-packed season of TV into two hours, as many other revivals have attempted to.
Those expecting an action-packed feast of death, destruction and intense dialogues should be warned that El Camino is actually a much slower and quieter movie than this, and all the better for it.
Rather than try to be dramatic-with-a-capital-D, the film is more concerned with moving its characters forward and building to a satisfying climax.
Flashbacks are keenly used to flesh out the characters we know, while Jesse's quest to get away clean is refreshingly simple, refusing to tie itself up in hyper-complex over-plotting.
Again, some hoping for the theatrics of Ozymandias may feel that this is too slight for its own good, but by stripping things down so much, the drama and especially the character work are brought to the forefront.