The Continental

[Drunk Monk]

Just got screeners. 

Back into the Wick world for me. 

On Peacock.

[Greg]

Dammit. Can't they show it on a real streamer?

(Congratulations)

[Drunk Monk]

E1: This is the creation story behind Winston and reveals his wayward brother Frankie. The Continental is already established along with the assassin codes, and the head of the Continental is Mel Gibson. 

Each ep is an hour and a half - like a movie. They are connected however - it’s like a continuous trilogy.

The action is solid, lots of shooting in the face like the rest of thr Wick world, plus some imaginative ruthlessness. My only complaint is that it’s dark. The shadows make it hard to see the action.

The sound was off too. The fights are explosive and loud, loud enough to turn down, but then other dialog scenes are quieter, so I kept adjusting the volume. 

So far so good. It pales in comparison to the actual Wick films but it maintains the tone and expands the world.

[Drunk Monk]

E2 wasn’t as strong. It felt more like a segue ep. Winston assembles his team to take on Mel (Mel does play a great asshole). Charon’s backstory is revealed. There’s some decent ultravi, mostly from the female leads. This ep was only a little more than an hour.

Note that there’s a cool Gene character introduced - a sniper who hides his folding sharpshooting rifle in a baguette. Not a Eugene tho. Might even be a Jean. Shoulda paid more attention to the credits…

[Drunk Monk]

E3 is the payout. A little over an hour and a half long, the siege of the Continental takes up the last hour of the trilogy, and it brings back the humor of the franchise, especially with Gene. There’s some fine ultravi, and one decent reveal, plus a lot of quirky assassins, and a sword fight (sort of - one assassin has swords - some kinda ninja it seemed.

In the end, ep 2 made it feel longwinded. It doesn’t quite live up to the films (it would’ve been astounding if it did) but it does create its own style as almost a period piece. It was annoyingly consistently dark. But it did have some moments. Mel was funny in the end. The masked adjucator reveal was predictable but how did she enunciate? 

D00M recommended.

[Drunk Monk]

Excerpted from my interview with the Director this morning...

Director
You know, one of our assassins is named Gene.
DM
Yeah, I was very pleased with that Gene character.
Director
We actually cut out a line out of it.
DM
Reps Gene well, you know.
Director
He said Gene and the IT goes 'Gene with the G?' and it was in the months and months and months like, I mean, we can't. I mean who's spelling it the other way?
DM
Very good, very good. Well, thank you for that. 

[Drunk Monk]

I watched e3 again last night, after completing the rough draft of my interview article. I 'got it' more, especially the soundtrack, which exemplifies what the director calls 'disco noir'. A lot of the 70s homages are very subtle - didn't catch all that the first time through. It's still very dark, but that's a device that's a nod to noir cinema. However, despite the stye points, it made the fights hard to follow, especially the ultimate cat fight (Yen v Gretel) where both combatants are in black ninja-esque cat suits. 

I stand by my D00M recommendation although I am curious to see how it'll play out for the general audience. Like some franchises that I cover extensively such as Cobra Kai and Warrior, my perspective is biased. Speaking of Warrior, I need to get back to that...the Continental screeners came with Warrior eps 4-6 and my original rep for Warrior only provided 1-3. That's next week's task...that's premieres on June 29 and the rep is arranging something for next Tuesday.

[Greg]

Time for the trailer.

[Drunk Monk]

Turns out that super cool Gene character was played by the husband of one of the EPs, which I discovered when I interviewed them all together. 

This drops in two weeks and I'll be very curious to see the reaction. I liked it, but it took me a while to get into it, and if I wasn't tasked with it, I might've bailed. It did pay out in the end. Not John Wick level action, but decent action nonetheless.

[Greg]

Mel Gibson.

[Drunk Monk]

Yeah. 

But he plays a total asshole, which worked for me in the end.

[Greg]

Just feels icky.

Still not getting Peacock.

[Drunk Monk]

Our Peacock ended. Near as I can tell, my mom must've signed up for it by clicking some button somewhere on Xfinity. It went to my email, perhaps Xfinity had that, and we had it for free for a while. Or at least, my mom paid for it. We cancelled that service like a year ago when my mom went into the care center and no one was watching TV there. It took longer for peacock to end. It was weird but I enjoyed it while I had it.