Badly Broken

A feature-length sequel to the “Breaking Bad” TV series, “El Camino” is an otherwise-pointless exercise in fan servicing. Besides the, by TV standards, sensationalism of an anti-hero and drug-and-murder-related subject matter, “Breaking Bad” was effective because of dramatic character development and the downward spiral of character interactions, as Walter White set out, originally, to help his family, but left everyone close to him worse off in his wake. The one beacon of hope was Jesse Pinkman driving away from the crime scene and his imprisonment. Nothing in “El Camino” can compare to the wonder of what the audience imagined his future may entail after finally being set free from his association with “Heisenberg” and the underworld of crystal meth. Not only that, but this movie doesn’t even try to; it’s entirely concerned with elaborating on the details of his escape, as, apparently, there’s an extensive police manhunt for him, as well as with him revisiting other characters from the show, the living or, thanks to flashbacks, the dead, and it ends essentially where it began, with Jesse driving away to the promise of a brighter future.

It’s two hours of no character development and needless plot development informed by flashbacks mundane enough that one would’ve believed they were cut from the original show if not for the obvious aging of the cast. Briefly, Jesse’s PTSD holds the promise of something new, but that storyline is dropped as soon as he finishes a shower. There’s some attempt to create grander vistas to justify the movie’s limited theatrical release, and there are intentional references to the Western genre, but it’s all pretty pathetic. The Western-style shootout even comes across as unimaginative compared to the elaborate schemes Walter came up with during the series, from the train heist to a machine gun booting out of his car. Worst of all are Jesse’s reunions with other members from the cast, which tend to elaborate on the same theme of what’s next for Jesse. It’s the worst sort of repetitiveness and cameos for the sake of cameos characteristic of TV programs--especially ones worse than “Breaking Bad,” which was supposed to be one of the more-cinematic TV shows. It’s ironic, then, that now that the TV show-turned-franchise has debuted in feature-length form and theatrically, it turns out to be, for the most part, anti-cinematic.