Kritiken

"El Camino" doesn’t feel like an episode of Breaking Bad, although GIlligan’s signature obsession with process still drives the suspense. It’s kind of "Felina," through a dark mirror—instead of the outlaw leaving his hideout to make amends and die, it’s the outlaw escaping death to make amends and then hide.

["El Camino"] lives up to Breaking Bad’s legacy of propulsive storytelling. The film is a visceral, ruminative, and emotionally satisfying epilogue in which the broken Jesse reconciles with his past and searches for the hope and humanity he’d lost—or, rather, been denied by Walt.

Still, between Paul’s raw, anguished work in close-ups and Gilligan’s sure hand at building tension... it’s hard to imagine "El Camino" failing to satisfy most fans of the series... The most original and affecting aspect of "El Camino" is that it gives Breaking Bad’s co-lead his own, very belated happy ending.

Despite its action-thriller pace and scale, one of the greatest pleasures of "El Camino" is that it still makes space for the funny banter that cut through the bleakness of Walter White’s descent... It’s to the credit of Gilligan, who wrote and directed the film, that it feels like a continuation of Breaking Bad without also feeling like merely an extra-long TV episode. It’s a true movie, with the taut pacing, satisfying conclusion and grand visual scale that distinction implies.

["El Camino" proves] that [Aaron] Paul is more than capable of carrying a story in this world where Jesse is the solo protagonist... [The film] still feels like the gift to fans it was originally designed to be, rather than something essential to the larger Breaking Bad experience. But when you have Vince Gilligan operating near the peak of his powers, and taking the time to fix one of the few things the show didn’t get quite right, it makes for one hell of an entertaining gift.

["El Camino"] challenges our fondest memories of White and Pinkman with an extended narrative in which the enigmatic half of the odd couple is gone... The film indulges in long, arty sequences that are wonderfully shot and staged but sleepy, despite an implied intensity.

Much of what makes this a success for both fans and agnostics is in how those pre-existing “Breaking Bad” characters join the fray... That this film can stand on its own, all while paying tribute to the show that helped birth it, is maybe the most impressive escape act of them all.

A project that feels true to its source, a well-crafted epilogue for a beloved character who vividly understands the concept of consequences.

The movie is more of a nail-biting crowd-pleaser than the relationship-based drama of the often-muted Better Call Saul; it’s also much more interested in reversing the polarity of its parent program... The road might’ve ended for Jesse Pinkman in the fall of 2013, but "El Camino" demonstrates that Gilligan and Paul still had a handful of S curves and hairpin turns left in them.

"El Camino" is a playful project, very fun, not always necessary. It’s an alternate series finale, a reunion special — and, maybe, an elaborate make-good.

Starting the moment Breaking Bad ended, this is very much a ‘what happened next’ double-episode. Which means, short of resurrecting Walter White, "El Camino" does precisely what you want it do.

While it has both style and content, El Camino feels more like a feature-length TV episode than an actual movie. It is too compact and fragmented to truly stand on its own, and viewers who have not seen the preceding 62 hours of Breaking Bad will likely struggle to enjoy it... However, where it excels is in giving the character of Jesse some closure.