El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

[Puce Moment]

'

Added bold for clarity.

Could you also bold 'ideally'

For clarity

[Mister Six]

I could, but it wouldn't in any way contradict my point, which is that the film lacks these things, and that criticisms of such (whether from reviews or from people on here "aping other reviews", as you suggest) are totally justified.

You can make a film with a story that's pointless, but ideally you wouldn't.

[Puce Moment]

Well, of course they are justified, but these opinions were flying around well before the film was available to watch. I should know, because I pretty much thought the same thing.

I guess I have come around to the idea that the 'happy ending' resolution is something of a McGuffin. Jesse's PTSD is going to fuck him up. That's story, not plot. And it forces us to consider Jesse's future which has something interesting to say about whether we move on or not. Or it is a neat happy ending - something Gilligan doesn't do in BB or BCS.

But I do disagree with your taxonomy for what a film should be.

[Blue Jam]

Hahahaha:

https://entertainment.theonion.com/5-things-to-know-about-el-camino-a-breaking-bad-movie-1838928370

[Mister Six]

Well, of course they are justified, but these opinions were flying around well before the film was available to watch. I should know, because I pretty much thought the same thing.

But the remarks you were commenting on came after the film came out and everyone had seen it.

I suppose I just dislike it when opinions are dismissed as being copied from other people rather than being engaged with critically.

[Puce Moment]

But the remarks you were commenting on came after the film came out and everyone had seen it.

I suppose I just dislike it when opinions are dismissed as being copied from other people rather than being engaged with critically.

Fair enough, but the narrative of pointlessness was flying around well before the film was released. I think, however, we have a more fundamental difference regarding the criteria for a good film.

[Mister Six]

I didn't say El Camino wasn't a good film...

[McFlymo]

Every time I saw "Music by Dave Porter" at the start of Breaking Bad, I always heard Limmy doing Dee Dee; "They even had a barber that rhymed with Yoker... Hair by Les...  Porter....."

El Camino was a load of ballix.

[Twit 2]

I went in with low expectations and thought it was excellent. A very satisfying and entertaining thing, with the fairly low stakes but engrossing tone of BCS. It was really nicely directed as well, something perhaps VG doesn't get enough credit for due to his more overt writing chops.

[Inspector Norse]

I just watched this. You guys have probably been over all this ground already, but some of my feelings:

I'm not the world's biggest Breaking Bad fan. I dutifully watched it through, thought it was decent, but not amazing. This film reminds me of why that was (and why I think BCS is superior): apart from Walter, the other characters were sketchy or irritating, and Jesse was always muddled: I got the impression that the creators struggled to come up with convincing arcs for him and the rest of the cast. For five series and now a full film I was never really sure what he was about, what his motivations were, why he behaved the way he did. This doesn't really do anything to resolve that: if we're looking at it from a BB/BCS canon perspective, nothing here really sheds any light on anything in the series (maybe Todd's character gets fleshed out a bit, ha ha ha), and the only real impact it makes on Jesse's arc is that he's further away than he was at the end of the series, still in a car on his way to an uncertain future. There are opportunities here for him to look at the choices he's made and the reasons behind them, but that never happens.

It was an enjoyable watch, though; more so in the second half than the first, when I was unduly distracted by Plemons' appearance (I've seen him in Fargo and The Irishman, of course, but comparing the Todd here to the Todd a few years ago really made me sit up and notice. It's just a continuity peculiarity I guess). The duel scene with the welders was superbly done and I genuinely bought the uncertainty about what would happen.

One major weakness of both this film and the original series is that we're not given enough reasons to root for the main characters, who are after all drug dealers and murderers. Compared to, for example, The Sopranos, I always thought Breaking Bad struggled to make Walter's domestic issues convincing: there was always an awkwardness to his interactions with his family whereas Tony Soprano's family life was much deeper and more complex. In Jesse's case that's even more pronounced and there's never enough there to separate him from the lowlives he deals with.

Watching it a few years after the series I was struck by how creative the direction was. A lot of unusual camera angles and smartly constructed scenes.

[NoSleep]

I think Walt's family life is falling apart around him because of his obsession with building his empire. His excuses about it all being to secure his family a future after he's gone is something of a lie by the end.