El Camino is a spin-off movie based on the hit TV series Breaking Bad. The show first aired in 2008, and came to a close after five seasons in 2013. It all starts when Walter White, who is played by Bryan Cranston, is diagnosed with stage three lung cancer. During this time, he was a high school chemistry teacher and his salary wouldn’t be enough to support his cancer treatments, pregnant wife, and his son with cerebral palsy, so he had to pick up a side job. He needed to make money fast and he figured that the drug trade would be the way to go. He teamed up with one of his former students Jesse Pinkman, who is played by Aaron Paul, to produce what would be the purest meth in the country. The series shows how Walter White grew his empire in the drug world with his partner Jesse in just a short period of time. The show had a lot of interesting plot twists like Walt’s brother-in-law being a DEA agent, the owner of a local fried chicken restaurant being one of Walt’s biggest competitors in the drug trade, and Walt’s wife, Skyler, having an affair. The point is, Breaking Bad always had you on the edge of your seat, but I don’t know if you could say the same about El Camino.

After Walter’s passing in the final episode of Breaking Bad, the story continued on to show how Jesse “continued the legacy”… or so they say. Considering that cooking, selling, and trading meth was the main focus of Breaking Bad, it was surprising that it wasn’t mentioned at all in El Camino. The movie shows how Jesse is a fugitive and has to lay low from the cops and the drug ring that held him captive. During this time, he decided to flee his captors show up at his old buddy’s house, Skinny Pete and Badger, and spent some time there in hiding. The story becomes a little choppy after that and has no clear plotline. The movie felt like a bunch of mini-stories that were poorly put together to try to make a plot. It wasn’t really clear what Jesse was running from, other than he couldn’t be caught. This movie is similar in a way to Pulp Fiction as in the story just goes with the flow and has no real climax. 

Aside from the storyline, the cinematic shots were creative and unique. The shots were very artistic and created suspense. Most of the sets in the movie were very ‘70s style and it looked a little off compared to how it was portrayed originally in Breaking Bad.
In the movie, they did incorporate some characters from the show that haven’t been mentioned since earlier seasons. One of the characters they brought back was Jane. She had overdosed on heroin in season two and made an appearance at the end of the movie as a flashback.

 As hardcore as they made the TV show and movie look, the ending was really sappy. It had a cute meaning, but it just looked like they were trying to incorporate old characters were they didn’t belong. Overall, the movie just needed an actual storyline and more supportive characters that help carry the story. It’s a good movie in the sense that you get to reminisce about the show and where the characters are now. If the movie wasn’t based on the hit TV show, it wouldn’t be as successful as it is because of the gaps in the storyline, confusing plot and unnecessary scenes.