Citadel - Amazon + Russos spy show

[JohnC]

6 episode spy show starring Richard Madden, Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Stanley Tucci. Coming on 28 April. Weekly rather than a season drop.

 

Citadel was the name of an independent, stateless spy agency. But it was destroyed by Manticore, with agents Madden and Chopra Jonas getting caught in a train explosion and losing their memories. But while living new lives 8 years later, they are contacted by former college, Tucci, needing their help to stop Manticore once more.

 

See how much Bourne and Bond you can spot in the trailer

 

 

[Sabreman]

"I have seen you before. In a dream"

 

🎵SWEET DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIIIIS🎵

 

 

[Monkeyboy]

Lots of things in that trailer that I haven’t seen a million times before. Should be great!

[Silent Runner]

Archer The Movie. 

[tejinashi]

Madden's audition for Bond? I find him a very unconvincing actor. 

 

And Tucci has been around since the 80s, couldn't they get anyone else?

 

 

[teddymeow]

Even though it has Richard Madden in it I'll give it a watch because Stanley Tucci is in it.

[MDY]

Modern medicine has yet to make the connection between being an espionage agent and amnesia, but there seems so much anecdotal evidence you'd think someone would look into it!.. Seems to be a fairly major occupational hazard..

[JohnC]

Apparently this core series will also have connected satellite series in local languages set in Italy, Mexico, Spain and India.

[tejinashi]

FIrst two episodes are out now. I'm kinda curious, but not currently subbed. Anyone wanna take one for the team?

[jonamok]

5 minutes in.
 

Spoiler

Opens with an absurd wallet lift that the main character manages to do with her shoulder.

 

Lots of crap green-screen.

 

Awful cringe flirting scene.

 

Then a fight in a toilet. Fitting.

 

Shitadel.

[jonamok]

It gets a bit better, but it’s pure, desperate hokum. Look up try-hard in the dictionary kind of desperate.

 

Spoiler

Stupid made-up agencies battling each other. Like Alias but 15 years on. Oh, and the good agency stopped Y2K. Lol.

 

Terrible direction (split screen, slowly rotating cameras), weak writing, shit-tier maguffin, dodgy accent from Madden. Tucci is Tucci though. The Russos are only execs on this too btw.

 

Anyway, I’ll give episode 2 a try, but only for Tucci.

[Mikes]

I'm honestly wondering where all the money Amazon is spending on big budget series is going. I enjoyed Rings Of Power but I couldn't spot where $150m per hour was being spent. Same here. $130 for a season and this is what they come up with.

 

On an entirely unreleased note, does anyone know who I can email screenplays to at Amazon?

[jonamok]

Well, in these two examples, it’s gone to the Tolkien Estate and the Russos’ bank manager. And definitely not to the writers.

 

If you find out where to send the script let me know. I’ve got a cheesey action script that’s about as bad as this.

[Monkeyboy]

First episode…

 

Spoiler

The fight in the toilet went on for far too long.

I’ve watched the first two episodes and don’t think I can be arsed with the rest of it. It’s complete toss.

[Chadruharazzeb]

6 hours ago, Mikes said:

$130 for a season and this is what they come up with.

 

Pff, I could afford that. 

[Spleen]

It's been reported to be $300 million for the season. For 6 (six) episodes!

WTF?

 

Anyway, it's ok, nothing special at all. Bond, Bourne, Alias stuff, but not as good. 

[Sexton Hardcastle]

I thought this was ok once you get past the exposition from ep1. The main cast all look to be up for it, with Tucci in particularly fine form. It’s zips along like the Russos’ other movies from set-piece to set-piece. 
 

Yeah, they’re probably little original in it, as it’s doing a lot of lifting from every other spy/action movie. But it least it does it well. I’ve saw enough to give the full series a go. 

[Popo]

On 06/03/2023 at 20:05, tejinashi said:

I find him a very unconvincing actor.

I’m not sure he’s a bad actor, as it were, more that he has a very specific register he works within, and struggles when he’s required to work outside of it. 

[pledge]

On 29/04/2023 at 04:02, Monkeyboy said:

First episode…

 

  Hide contents

The fight in the toilet went on for far too long.

I’ve watched the first two episodes and don’t think I can be arsed with the rest of it. It’s complete toss.

 

I've watched the first, and it's not great. Despite the massive budget everything looks really cheap, as if they only did one pass on the fx. Action was fine but expected a bit more after other things they've produced like Extraction.

 

Tucci is the best part of it, but when he was doing the long winded explanation of what was going on it sounded just like his voiceover on his Searching for Italy foodie travel series.

[Dapple]

On 29/04/2023 at 17:05, Popo said:

I’m not sure he’s a bad actor, as it were, more that he has a very specific register he works within, and struggles when he’s required to work outside of it. 

I think you're being very generous. If someone's bad at acting 90% of the time, I don't think it's unreasonable to call them a bad actor.

[Spleen]

Episode 3 is out and O. M. G. 

The effects during the skiing escape are worse than Die Another Day. 

Are we sure this is the second most expensive TV series?

 

[pledge]

This is proper shite. I decided to watch the third despite thinking the first two were poor as the trailer seemed to show the action stepping up. Then as Spleen says it was shocking. It was probably meant to be like the snow bit from Inception but every part of it was atrocious, not just the sloppy zoom in on him skiing. I absolutely hate how this is shot with the horrible lighting, filters and shiny HDR. It is almost offensively bad in how artificial it looks. The behind the scenes at the end of the where they are talking about characters motivations is hilarious. There's no writing or acting to reflect any of it. I don't really know Madden but he's terrible enough in this he will be Bond.

[jonamok]

The writing and performances in literally every scene are shit. Every special effect shot is low-rent shit. The camerawork, especially the slow rotation that has to happen twice a week (despite different directors) and the awful half-arsed tilt-shift effect on wide shots, are just plain offensive. The world building is appalling. The music choices are cringe.

 

This genuinely makes Alias look Emmy-worthy. It’s such a creatively bankrupt endeavour that it astonishes me. It’s a $300m car crash.

 

Of course, I am totally in for the whole season.

[metallicfrodo]

Having watched the first two episodes It has massive Alias vibes without managing to be kitsch enough or as fun as that was. However the trailer for the rest of the show at the end of episode 2 looked amazing (which I doubt it will be unfortunately). My wife (a massive Alias fan) and I (a pretty big Alias fan) will no doubt watch the rest of it.

[ucci]

If this is being advertised on the side of a bus then you know its going to be shite. Never trust buses. 

[Festoon]

Shitadel

[jonamok]

On 28/04/2023 at 23:33, jonamok said:

5 minutes in.
 

  Reveal hidden contents

Opens with an absurd wallet lift that the main character manages to do with her shoulder.

 

Lots of crap green-screen.

 

Awful cringe flirting scene.

 

Then a fight in a toilet. Fitting.

 

Shitadel.

 

3 hours ago, Festoon said:

Shitadel

So true it was worth saying twice.

[hub2]

I honestly couldn't make it past the opening scene. As soon as the two characters sat down and bickering with one another in various languages I was out. Quite impressive really, as I have sat through some terrible stuff in the recent past (oh I don't know, Picard 1 & 2 for example?).

[footle]

On 06/05/2023 at 00:06, metallicfrodo said:

Having watched the first two episodes It has massive Alias vibes without managing to be kitsch enough or as fun as that was. However the trailer for the rest of the show at the end of episode 2 looked amazing (which I doubt it will be unfortunately). My wife (a massive Alias fan) and I (a pretty big Alias fan) will no doubt watch the rest of it.

What’s amazing about episode three, apart from the budget, is that every twist is exactly the twist you’d predict, and the writers don’t trust you enough to let any of those questions sit for longer than twenty minutes, let alone a whole episode.

 

Spoiler

You’ve been together eight years? Fast mover.

If you get my phone I will tell you where your girlfriend is.

We met in a long term memory clinic.

I thought the bit where 

Spoiler

The wife

turned out to be on team evil would at least be at the end of the season.

Or even season two.

 

But no, not in Shitadel.

 

are we sure it’s not actually a time travel series from next year and was conceived, written and created by badly prompted AI during the writers strike?

[Sabreman]

I love it when spies are already on a mission, but for the benefit of the audience they have someone explain to them what the mission is and what their gadgets do, moments before they make contact with the enemy.