Like nearly everyone else on the planet, I loved the TV show BREAKING BAD (2008-2013). It’s one of my favorite TV series of all time.

But unlike most everyone else, I was not a fan of the show’s final season. I know. For most fans, the final season was the best season. For me, it just got too dark, and when Walter White went full-blown Dr. Evil bonkers, I lost interest. Another reason I wasn’t nuts about the final season was the fate of Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul). Pinkman goes through hell during the final few episodes, and while he lives to tell about it, what he ultimately goes through was so painful and so horrific, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

So, I was delighted when I heard there was going to be a BREAKING BAD movie which would focus on Jesse’s fate after the events of the show.

And that movie is EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE (2019), produced by Netflix, and enjoying a joint release, both on the big screen at the cinema, and also at home on Netflix. Since I’m not made of money, I chose the Netflix option.

Now, EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE is getting high-octane reviews. The critics love it! So, why was I— disappointed?

Well, since you asked:

First of all, I’m just not a big fan of prequels or stories that spend as much time looking back as looking forward, and that’s what this new BREAKING BAD movie does. Sure, it’s a sequel to the show, but it’s also a prequel, of sorts.

At the end of BREAKING BAD, we see Jesse escape the fiery and bloody events of the show’s finale, and he’s one of the few characters who does survive. He and Walter White (Bryan Cranston) went from small time meth cookers to major drug dealers, and as I said, White eventually goes batsh*t crazy trying to become the Godfather of the meth business.

When EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE opens, we find a dazed and scarred Jesse hiding from police who view him as a “person of interest” in the bloodbath which ended the series. He makes his way to his old friends Badger (Matt Jones) and Skinny Pete (Charles Baker), and they help Jesse with his initial escape from the authorities.

But after that, where does Jesse go? What are his options? To figure this out, he spends a lot of time thinking of past events which help shape where he will take his future, and hence the bulk of this film is “flashbacks” to prior events in Jesse’s life which give him insight into his future. Now, these aren’t flashbacks to scenes from the show, but rather, scenes which took place in the past which audiences haven’t seen yet.

As such, lots of characters from the show return here, and for many, that’s one of the best things about this movie, seeing a “who’s who” list of BREAKING BAD characters back in action. But for me, this only goes so far. While I enjoyed seeing these folks again, and I’ll remain mum about who shows up so as to avoid spoilers, it didn’t really make for captivating viewing.

Jesse digests this information and then uses it to formulate his plan for moving forward in the future. That pretty much is the story told in EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE.

I was unimpressed. I would have much preferred a story about Jesse several years after the events from the final season. I get the point of this movie, however. It’s to show how Jesse survives and deals with the horrors of what he went through during the show’s final season. It just didn’t work all that well for me.

It plays out like an extended episode of the series rather than a feature-length movie, and like most extended episodes of a TV series, it feels longer than it should be.

As I said, I’m not a fan of stories that have to look back to go forward.  The bulk of the action in EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE features plot points I already knew the answers to.

That being said, writer/director Vince Gilligan’s other prequel to BREAKING BAD, the TV series BETTER CALL SAUL (2015-present) does work, and that’s because SAUL is a TV series that has the benefit of more time. BETTER CALL SAUL does such a thorough job with Jimmy McGill’s (Bob Odenkirk) back story that even though it is tied into events which will later happen on BREAKING BAD, the show stands on its own. It’s best moments don’t even have me thinking of BREAKING BAD.

Of course, it also helps that BETTER CALL SAUL, like BREAKING BAD before it, has superior writing. These series’ scripts are some of the best in the business.

I didn’t find Vince Gilligan’s script here for EL CAMINO on par with his work on BREAKING BAD or SAUL. It had its moments, but none of them stood out for me like some of the classic ones from the series.

Likewise, while it was good to see Aaron Paul play Jesse Pinkman again, nothing he does here in this movie is as good as what we saw him do on the series.

If you’re a fan of BREAKING BAD you’ll definitely want to check this movie out to learn what happens next to Jesse Pinkman. But don’t expect to be blown away by new revelations or situations. Nothing that happens in this film is as good as what happened in the series.

And if you haven’t seen the show, I don’t think you’d enjoy this one at all. It really doesn’t stand on its own, which is another notch against it.

I was ultimately disappointed with EL CAMINO: A BREAKING BAD MOVIE. While I was certainly happy to follow Jesse on his escape following the harrowing events of the series’ finale, where that escape takes him isn’t all that exciting.

If you’re content with watching what amounts to be an extended follow-up episode to the BREAKING BAD series, you might like EL CAMINO, but if you’re expecting something more, something extra special, you’ll be in for a disappointment.

For me, it wasn’t so much  BREAKING BAD as it was BREAKING BORED.

—END—

Books by Michael Arruda:

New in 2019! DARK CORNERS, Michael Arruda’s second short story collection, contains ten tales of horror, six reprints and four stories original to this collection.

Waiting for you in Dark Corners are tales of vampires, monsters, werewolves, demonic circus animals, and eternal darkness. Be prepared to be both frightened and entertained. You never know what you will find lurking in dark corners.

Ebook: $3.99. Available at http://www.crossroadspress.com and at Amazon.com.  Print on demand version available at https://www.amazon.com/dp/1949914437.

TIME FRAME,  science fiction novel by Michael Arruda.  

How far would you go to save your family? Would you change the course of time? That’s the decision facing Adam Cabral in this mind-bending science fiction adventure by Michael Arruda.

Ebook version:  $2.99. Available at http://www.crossroadpress.com. Print version:  $18.00. Includes postage! Email your order request to mjarruda33@gmail.com. Also available at Amazon.com.

IN THE SPOOKLIGHT, movie review collection by Michael Arruda.

Michael Arruda reviews horror movies throughout history, from the silent classics of the 1920s, Universal horror from the 1930s-40s, Hammer Films of the 1950s-70s, all the way through the instant classics of today. If you like to read about horror movies, this is the book for you!

 Ebook version:  $4.99.  Available at http://www.crossroadpress.com.  Print version:  $18.00.  Includes postage. Email your order request to mjarruda33@gmail.com. Also available at Amazon.com.

FOR THE LOVE OF HORROR, first short story collection by Michael Arruda.  

 

Michael Arruda’s first short story collection, featuring a wraparound story which links all the tales together, asks the question: can you have a relationship when your partner is surrounded by the supernatural? If you thought normal relationships were difficult, wait to you read about what the folks in these stories have to deal with. For the love of horror!

 Ebook version:  $4.99.  Available at http://www.crossroadpress.com. Print version:  $18.00.  Includes postage. Email your order request to mjarruda33@gmail.com. Also available at Amazon.com.