Aaron Paullooks so old inEl Camino, but only because he was so young onBreaking Bad.
A shower doesnt help.
The scars on his cheek suggest a grizzly bear mauling.
Credit: Ben Rothstein/Netflix
Hes haunted by flashbacks, a TV character outracing his own dead show.
(This review will reveal everything, be warned.)
Faces are rounder, and one famously bald head has an unfamiliar prosthetic quality.
In its last season,Badrevealed that its first 50 episodes took place in one year, between birthdays.
So technically,El Caminotakes place just a couple years after the original series premiere.
(Jesses brother, a teen in 2008, disappears on a band trip to London.)
But time flows sideways inBreaking Bads ever-sizzling Albuquerque, a sun-blasted desert deco underland of meticulous criminality.
CreatorVince Gilliganand his collaborators already spun off with the frequently wonderful origin taleBetter Call Saul.
And now Gilligan has written and directedEl Camino, which sequel-prequels freely between past and present.
Badwas already a stylish thriller, trending toward Luciferian chromatic extremes.
InEl Camino, Gilligan directs energetically, with a bigger-looking budget (that fleet of police cars!)
deployed more for high anxiety than flashy pyrotechnics.
Taut close-ups cut out to ultra-wide shots.
A gun showdown rapid-edits between faces, firearms, and one sucker holding his cocaine straw for dear life.
El Caminois a playful project, very fun, not always necessary.
Its an alternate series finale, a reunion special and, maybe, an elaborate make-good.
Not a big deal, maybe; Paul won his third Emmy for that season.
Did Gilligan feel, deep down, like he owed the character something more?
With Walt left for dead in theBadfinale,El Caminobecomes Jesses story, through and through.
Walts appearance is quietly sorrowful, poignantly resurrecting the lost promise of their surrogate father-son dynamic.
El Caminoprequelizes Todd into a freaky two-hander with the imprisoned Jesse.
Hes introduced shadow-first, talking amiably about the weather.
(The report predicted rainclouds, but he can only see regular cloudclouds.)
(God, imagine Plemons in aPop.
1280adaptation, directed by Gilligan!
)El Caminodeepens his man-child mystique.
The Todd sequences are hallucinatory, and Paul finds new notes of terror-comedy in his reactions.
Meanwhile, in the present-day scenes, Paul whittles his natural exuberance down to season 5s traumatized exhaustion.
The doofuses at Kandy Welding Co. are believably loathsome enemy parasites.
And the final showdown lets Gilligan indulge himself as a Western filmmaker.
Still, Oh, there wasanothergun in his jacket pocket!
is a step down from the Rube Goldberg-taking-AP-chemistry cleverness of Heisenbergs best heists.
Whats lacking in this entertaining pulp quest, I think, is some essential surprise.
The serene Alaskan ending cant compare with the unpindownable madness of Jesses series-finale scream.
Back then, Pauls bruised face exploded with every emotion every human has ever felt.
