El Camino was... underwhelming. It's a lot like The X-Files: I Want To Believe. Not really a movie, just an extra long episode of the show. Not terrible, but not especially good. Kinda necessary to watch while also feeling inessential. A missed opportunity.
There are some great moments and excellent scenes. But it just doesn't pack the punch that it thinks it does.
You can tell that everyone who worked on this is used to doing their job for television and doesn't quite know how to construct a "film" out of this material. This is especially felt in the editing. Whereas an episode of Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul is vital and packed with incident, El Camino feels stretched and lacks momentum.
I think Vince was going for subtlety, but this is just kind of plain. It's shot plainly and lacks the dynamic visuals of the show. It's written plainly. The score is also noticeably bad. So it ends up feeling like a bit of a downgrade.
I like this observation from NME:
"The film ends as the show did – Jesse braves his future alone. It’s just puzzling to watch two more hours and reach, essentially, the exact same conclusion."
