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"Citadel": Amazon's expensive series would have crashed if not for the two main actors - voila! culture

2023-04-27T20:43:20.271Z


300 million dollars were poured into Amazon's new giant series, which is supposed to launch a new and intriguing television universe, but the investment is not exactly visible on the screen, it is littered with clichés and not exciting


Trailer for the series "Citadel" (Amazon Prime Video)

Richard Madden has a section with six-episode action series that open with promising scenes set on a train.

The Scottish actor, best known as Rob Stark from "Game of Thrones", starred in 2018 in the mini-series "Bodyguard" (which is available on Netflix).

In it, he portrayed a security services man who had to neutralize a suicide attack on a train in the nerve-wracking opening minutes.

This time, in the series "Citadel", he plays a secret agent of a world intelligence organization tasked with stopping a man who has a bag with uranium.

Together with his partner, who is also his ex, he finds himself caught in a much more complex situation than he thought.

It's a good opening for the new action series - the first two episodes of which will be released tomorrow (Friday) on Amazon Prime Video and then an episode will be added every week - and it represents quite the effective continuation that follows, based on the three episodes sent for review.

But the constant feeling is that "good" and "effective" are not enough in the case of "Citadel".

Not as a flagship brand of Amazon Prime Video launching a new television universe, its second most expensive series ever, with $300 million - according to reports in the Hollywood Reporter - for just one season with six episodes of less than 40 minutes (including opening, closing and abstract).

The international concept of the series is intended to grow from it local branches - two of them, Italy and India, are already in the works - but the lack of brilliance of the original does not really arouse excitement for additional products.

As we described in the article about the trials that succeeded, "Citadel" had to go through a very expensive set of improvements.

Some of that 300 million was due to going back to the drawing board after a script had already been written and shots had been taken, but the result was not to the satisfaction of Prime Video executives.

Good and efficient is not enough.

Not in the case of this series.

"Citadel" (Photo: Amazon Prime Video)

So, in a way, "Citadel" is evidence of Amazon's intransigence, which insisted on the series despite everything.

In practice, "Citadel" is all a compromise: six episodes instead of eight, 40 minutes instead of an hour, a mediocre product instead of one of the exciting and impressive series of the year - as required by the budget, the pretension and the brothers Joe and Anthony Russo, the captains of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at its peak, who signed This thing as producers.



Within the world of the series, Citadel is the name of a mythical worldwide intelligence organization that is not subordinate to any nation, but acts as an external entity whose goal is to prevent acts of terrorism around the world.

Against him stands another, evil shadow organization called "Manticore", which manages to neutralize "Citadel" and its skilled agents one by one.

Years later, Mason Kane (Madden) and Nadia Sin (Priyanka Chopra Jonas) are the only known refugees from the Citadel, but their memory has faded and they live quiet and completely different lives, not knowing at all who they are, what they did in the past and about each other.

She was last seen in Italy, he lives with his wife and small daughter in a remote settlement in the United States.

As far as their operator, played by the always-excellent Stanley Tucci, they are most likely dead.

But then, when the location of each of the agents is revealed, they face existential danger without even knowing why.



It's an ambitious plot, especially as one that should launch subsidiary series, and "Citadel" goes out of its way not to be too complex, to iron out every nuance and every hint of sophistication that might deter viewers.

Even so, the jump between times and from place to place around the world requires attention from the audience that will prevent them from browsing on the phone at the same time, it is not worth adding dialogues that are not explanatory or pompous.

In fact, it's best to look like a million other popular things we've already seen.

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She also fails to save her character.

Leslie Manville, "Citadel" (Photo: Amazon Prime Video)

Always excellent.

Stanley Tucci, "Citadel" (Photo: Amazon Prime Video)

David Weil, creator of that Prime Video's Hunters, had already demonstrated his crude brushstrokes in that series about Nazi hunters, and is now doing the same in The Citadel.

Under his direction, the new series tries very hard to follow in the footsteps of two of the most popular and successful film franchises in cinema - James Bond and Jason Bourne.

The all-powerful spies, the grotesque villains (it's clear that Leslie Manville enjoys the role but she also can't save her very one-dimensional character), the futuristic technologies (speaking of which - why the hell would anyone, least of all an intelligence agency, want to work on a computer with a transparent screen that allows you to see everything from its other side? Haven't you heard of information security?), the bombastic music that is very reminiscent of that of 007;

The jumpy edited action scenes, the amnesia, the innate instincts and even some iconic goofs, like the agent floating on the water, which were simply taken as they are from Jason Bourne.



Despite hanging on tall trees, "Citadel" looks like a child who reached a branch somewhere in the middle and tries to continue climbing, but without success.

The great similarity only emphasizes how much the new series does not come close to these two legendary cinematic agents.

Furthermore, the choice to open the story when the Justice Fighter intelligence organization is at a low ebb, deprives it of the possibility of convincing us of its greatness.

The series tries to do this through dialogues like "You were a myth, you were a 'Citadel'" and "The last line of defense of the best in the world", but these only add to the feeling of pomposity that covers hot air.



It is also difficult to say that the rich budget is evident in the series.

Some of the effects are downright embarrassing - for example, a distant explosion in one of the episodes kills two unknown soldiers who look as real as characters in a computer game from twenty years ago.

The series tries to ground and balance the moments of action and global conspiracy through Mason's quiet family life, which should give him and us the feeling that there is something to fight for - but they also look like clichés that we have already seen plenty of, at least in the first half of the first season.




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The chemistry between them is worth everything.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden, "Citadel" (Photo: Amazon Prime Video)

And after all that, "Citadel" is not a train wreck.

Its main problem stems from the expectations placed on it, and these are indeed very justified, but at the end of the day, as a weightless action series it is likable and fluid.

The action sequences in it are invested and fun, as far-fetched as they may be.

It doesn't take itself too seriously despite the grandiose theme, is embedded with not bad twists, and above all - the chemistry between its two stars is lively.



This is probably the greatest virtue of "Citadel".

The connection between Madden and Chopra Jonas is like electric shocks that help the pace of the entire series stabilize.

Thus, for example, despite Mason's relative smoothness on the domestic front, an interesting gap has emerged between family life and his obvious attraction to Nadia and hers to him.

Another interesting gap is the things that one of them remembers and the other doesn't, which will surely cause trouble later, as well as the knowledge that they are already separated from the beginning even though they are obviously attracted to each other.

This constant tension, both between them and in the things we and they don't yet know, creates something reminiscent of another work by Doug Layman, the man behind Jason Bourne - "Mr. and Mrs. Smith."



If "Citadel", which has already been renewed for a second season, harnesses the energy between the two to move its engine forward, shakes off its tendency to over-expose and settles on a plot that is a little less banal - it is quite possible that it can become something that does not embarrass the huge bet on it.

I wish on the way there she would also give a little more credit to the intelligence of the viewers.

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Source: walla

All tech articles on 2023-04-27

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