The Continental Review: John Wick Prequel Follows A Well-Defined Plot | Peacock
Cast: Colin Woodell, Mel Gibson, Hubert Point-Du Jour, Jessica Allain, Mishel Prada, Nhung Kate, Ben Robson, Peter Greene, Ayomide Adegun, Jeremy Bobb, Katie McGrath, Ray McKinnon, Adam Shapiro, Mark Musashi, Marina Mazepa
Director: Albert Hughes, Charlotte Brändström
Streaming Platform: Peacock and Prime Video
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 4/5 (four stars) [yasr_overall_rating size=”large”]
The Continental: From the World of John Wick, the spin-off series dedicated to the John Wick saga starring Keanu Reeves which has now come to an end, has just arrived on Prime Video. The prequel series tells the story of the hotel and the Great Table, before the advent of the most feared killer, but stars some characters we have already met. The Continental gives us a lot of what we’ve seen in the John Wick films, albeit with much less action, mostly concentrated in the third and final episode. The spin-off series consists of three episodes lasting approximately 1 hour and a half each, mini-films that tell us how Winston Scott and Charon took control of the hotel.
The Continental is what’s right for you, lovers of John Wick, of action done right, of the right mix between noir, crime, and martial arts, in short, those who want a series that offers something more than what has already been seen or heard. A gamble won with a bang for Prime Video, which confirms itself as a treasure chest where you can find bold, intriguing products capable of giving strong emotions. This is a series that will get people talking a lot and promises to be a point of reference from multiple points of view from here on out. And so here we are again, ready to prepare it, to prepare it with care, letting the threads of other stories, other lives, other destinies gather above (or below) it; leaving to the supervision of Coolidge, Ward and Simmons the unfolding of what was, before what we know to have been.
The Continental Review: The Story Plot
New York City, 1955. Two boys ran into the night. Cut. A very young Winston Scott and his brother Frankie sit in an interrogation room of a police station. Winston cries, between sobs, he turns to Frankie; he tries to calm him down, to reassure him. The camera closes in on their faces. Winston Scott’s parable begins on the surface of a tear-stained face, in the mid-1950s. And he immediately abandons her, teleporting “years later” into the folds of the Seventies. In London, Winston (Colin Woodel) is a busy businessman on the rise; in New York, however, his brother Frankie (Ben Robson) organizes and carries out a theft against the criminal Cormac (Mel Gibson). Their paths, which have remained separate for a long time, will once again intersect in the streets of the Big Apple, triggering an uncontrollable spiral of violence which, between new tasks and traces of an unresolved past, will mark Winston’s rise to the top of the American criminal world. From the whine of a dog to the crying of a child. Again, the pain is at the origin of ferocity, brutality, and greatness.
Before the advent of Winston Scott along with his right-hand man Charon, there was another man in charge of the New York hotel, namely Cormac, played by Mel Gibson. It is interesting to note how many of the predecessors we learned about during the various films dedicated to John Wick, for example, the King of the Slums played by Laurence Fishburne in the films. The Continental thus sees the birth of Winston Scott as we know him, not very skilled in combat, but infallible in devising plans and subterfuges useful for his purposes. The series tells how Winston manages to take control of the hotel thanks to a well-thought-out plan, taking the place of Cormac, the villain of the series.
Mainly thanks to Mel Gibson‘s incredibly over-the-top performance, the character is completely out of control and when we see him on stage, he stands out from the rest. Together with Cormac, we also find several killers with bizarre features, among all of which the twins, Hansel and Gretel, stand out in particular, who rarely utter a word, but who play a fundamental role in the development of the series and Winston‘s character. Precisely the relationship between him and Charon was born here, thanks to the different needs that they both have, they join forces and from that moment on they will never be separated, until the last chapter of the John Wick saga. As with the films, here too the supporting characters play a fundamental role in the mission and are much more in-depth than what we see in the films.
The Continental Review and Analysis
Looking at the first three episodes of the series, which inevitably finds the authors of the John Wick trilogy, Derek Kolstad, David Leitch, and Chad Stahelski, in the role of executive producers, very little seems to want to lead us back to that action form and language, made of bombastic, sensational, bloody and yet very elegant sequences, as everything here becomes more raw, foggy and tastefully vintage. The idea is to immerse the criminal underworld of New York and thus also its high-class killers, the police, and the small clans destined to gradually form and then vanish, in the extremely changeable, confused, and violent social and political climate of the 70s, between echoes of wars that have not yet ceased and with the inevitable consequences and psychological effects on the American population, and recessive economic issues, which secretly move the interests of the protagonists of The Continental, starting from the villain Cormac.
Although it appears to have an extremely dramatic atmosphere and is filmed with a mature gaze and awareness of the obvious metaphors of the narrative structure of the series, that of The Continental is in no way an ambition comparable to the ghosts of the psyche, therefore to traumas and the path of violence and redemption of a Taxi Driver, nor of a paranoid and desperate darkness like that of The Conversation. Nothing further away. Since Albert Hughes and Charlotte Brändström, the two directors of the series, relying on the excellent writing of Greg Coolidge, Kirk Ward, Shawn Simmons, and Ken Kristensen, enjoy interweaving dramatic registers and tastefully pulp and pop elements, arising from both cinematographic and comics imagery, which looks with love and admiration at the work of authors such as Quentin Tarantino, Matthew Vaugh, Garth Ennis, Robert Kirkman, David Leitch, and Gareth Evans, thus giving life to an incredible quotation and light-hearted product.
If any part of the incredibly bloody action staging and choreography, full of explosions, fights, and chases of the first three episodes of The Continental, may appear already seen, or at least similar to something recent, it is precisely the memorable diptych The Raid by Gareth Evans who seems to turn his gaze, working on the combination, claustrophobic constriction, and unstoppable violence, to the best of his abilities – and possibilities – without however ever really being up to it. What conquers and raises questions from the first chapter of John Wick, in addition to the dark past of the lovable hitman John Wick/Baba Yaga (Keanu Reeves) can only coincide with the mythology of the Hotel Continental.
A non-place which, despite being deeply rooted in the urban and metropolitan reality of New York, survives in many other states and countries around the world, living on written – and unwritten – laws capable of supporting very fragile criminal balances, otherwise prey to chaos and instinctive desire for power and blood, dangerous to the point of destroying every single life and form of society. Therefore, if it was reasonable to expect from The Continental a development that was at least in-depth and romantically interested in the mythology of that non-place – The Continental – so powerful and equally protagonist – on a par with Reeves himself – of the original John Wick trilogy, it is good to say that not all the expectations and expectations were satisfied, due to only partial interest in the same, and a not at all convincing crowding of main and secondary characters who add very little to the solidity and originality of the product.
Note of merit to the soundtrack which in more than one moment allows the void to come to life and thus the boredom to vanish. Thanks to Mel Gibson who has never been so over the top and dangerously poised between a horror bizarreness that is certainly exaggerated and exhilarating, and an involuntarily comic register that partly makes you smile and partly makes you fear for the credibility of his role. The Continental is a brilliant puzzle, enveloping everything we have learned about the John Wick universe, its semantics, and world-building. There is the best of action cinema, videogame universes, crime, and genre films, in a sort of incredibly seductive vintage package. There are many homages not only to the blaxploitation genre but to the films of Bruce Lee and Sonny Chiba, The Continental is like a sort of gigantic plant, whose branches reach out to grasp the most disparate cinematic entities. Perfect in pace, with a crescendo that then flows into a sensational final battle, it has something of Tarantino, of Guy Ritchie, but there are also numerous homages to Peckinpah, Friedkin, the Matrix trilogy, Japanese anime and manga, the Spaghetti Western and to so much more.
The characters, however, stylized, are described satisfyingly: each has their personality, their motivations, and even more exemplary, The Continental never loses control, it does not become excessively glamorous or, on the contrary, uselessly elephantine. Free from a mannered narrative, although endowed with a certain style and a certain dark humor, from start to finish it espouses a dramatic and at the same time playful tone, in which the plot is populated with twists and turns that are entirely different from what a given. Themes such as revenge, personal redemption, greed, and naturally the absence of true loyalty in a world, the criminal one, are brought forward, which gives us a desperate and melancholic cross-section, connecting to the best of what is time even a giant like John Woo did.
The Continental is an unmissable series, hopefully, the first season of several, capable of rekindling our attention on this small screen, on which streaming platforms have recently been competing to offer us rather avoidable products. We know that the intention of Chad Stahelski, director of the John Wick saga and producer of The Continental, is to create a universe with several connected films, as recently announced. In fact, after the series that you can find on Prime Video, there will be at least one new film that will have something in common with the saga starring Keanu Reeves.
The next John Wick spinoff should be Ballerina starring Ana de Armas. This will be a film with a female assassin. The protagonist of the spinoff will probably be one of the students at the director’s school (played by Angelica Houston), in which young, orphaned girls learn the art of dancing and that of assassination. The plot is likely to focus on the girl trying to avenge her parents by tracking down their killers. Other rumors would have the 5th chapter of John Wick in development and a possible film starring Halle Barry. In short, The Continental could just be the beginning of a large developing universe that could also contain a second season of the series if the first goes well.
The Continental Review: The Last Words
The Continental takes up what we have always seen in the films dedicated to John Wick, expanding it and telling us the past of some characters who have become iconic thanks to the saga created and directed by Chad Stahelski. The protagonist is Winston, who will have to try to overthrow the villain of the series, Cormac, played to perfection by Mel Gibson. The series is promoted, and the second season will most likely be announced. Far from the theoretical-visual heights of the fourth cinematic chapter, the series is a gruesome divertissement that amalgamates action, thriller, and 70s detective stories.
The Continental Review: John Wick Prequel Follows A Well-Defined Plot | Peacock - Filmyhype
Director: Albert Hughes, Charlotte Brändström
Date Created: 2023-09-22 12:50
4
Pros
- Stylish visuals and action sequences
- Strong performances from Woodell and Gibson
- Interesting premise and world-building
Cons
- Slow-paced and lacking in focus
- Multiple subplots that never fully coalesce
- Doesn't quite reach the heights of the John Wick films
