El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie

Breaking Bad is a self-contained story with a beginning, middle, and end. That means any new projects set in the same continuity are outside of that. In my best case scenario this movie and Better Call Saul will probably not be considered great projects in their own right. What they probably WILL do (and SHOULD do) is make rewatching Breaking Bad an even more rewarding experience the second time out. I was not looking for Vince Gilligan to up the ante and outdo Breaking Bad with this small-scale Coda for Jesse Pinkman. If anybody else was actually expecting that they have no idea how storytelling works.

I think the thing I hate most about Todd is that he is kind. The murderous things this idiot does are outside of the fact that he's outwardly friendly and caring. Is he a sociopath? I am not sure. He could be and the kindness might simply be a learned response. But the idea that he might not be is the far more frightening thing for me to consider. If the murderous stuff didn't bother him at all, that would be easier to take. The fact that he's always apologetic for it and always treating people decently outside of that is the specific reason the character disturbs me, and why I hate him.

I didn't hear about Bryan Cranston's cameo ahead of time but it didn't surprise me. It was a nice extra, especially with Jesse expressing annoyance that Mr. White forgot he graduated high school. God, Walt never thought much of this kid, did he? Another reason to hate Walt.

Ed's scenes were pretty great. Robert Forster ALWAYS killed it with deadpan. He was QUITE good at treating absurdities with minimal reaction.

Nice roles for Skinny Pete and Badger. They're good guys.

Boy, did Jesse outdraw that guy. That was great.

In my final season review of Breaking Bad, I forgot to mention that Walt admitting he let Jane die, simply to hurt Jesse, killed me dead at the time. And after all this kid has been though. It was nice for a post-Jessica Jones Krysten Ritter to cameo in a flashback at the end for that reason.

Breaking Bad had few happy endings possible for the characters. It's kind of nice Jesse Pinkman got one after all. And I expected nothing more from the film besides that. I never expected the supposed greatest TV show of all time to make the greatest movie of all time. As far as expectations go, that's totally weird. For me, the movie did what it needed to do. I liked it. 4 stars.