'The Continental' Doesn't Understand What People Like about 'John Wick'

By Dustin Rowles | TV | September 26, 2023 |

By Dustin Rowles | TV | September 26, 2023 |

Peacock’s John Wick prequel series, The Continental, is less a television show and more three 90-minute films airing a week apart. I haven’t seen the second two episodes/movies yet, but I struggled mightily to get through the first chiefly because — as Dan, Tori, and I also discuss in this week’s Podjiba podcast — the creators do not seem to understand what about John Wick fans love so much. The best thing about John Wick is the Keanu Reeves title character, and what’s missing most from The Continental: From the World of John Wick is … John Wick.

The mythology of John Wick and all the business about the High Table is just interesting enough to hang two hours of Keanu-centric action sequences on but hardly intriguing enough to build an entire series around. It doesn’t help, either, that we know the ultimate outcome, so the fate of the lead character, Winston (Colin Woodell), is never in doubt. And with all due respect, how does this weenie Woodell end up anything like the Ian McShane character? It’s like hiring Timothée Chalamet to play a young version of a Brian Cox character. Chalamet may be a fine actor, but in what world does he grow up to be Logan Roy?

The gist of the plot is as such: Winston and his older brother, Frankie (Ben Robson), were troubled kids raised to be criminals by Cormac O’Connor (Mel Gibson), the guy in the 1970s who runs The Continental. Despite that, as adults, Frankie decides — in a bloody Wick-esque heist — to steal the coin grinder, a MacGuffin that mints gold coins for the High Table. Cormac, in turn, kidnaps Winston from London and brings him to New York to help him locate his brother, Frankie, from whom Winston is estranged, and bring back the coin grinder.

Winston, however, decides to help out his brother and goes against Cormac and the High Table, which makes Winston enemies with a lot of assassins. Winston also makes a few friends along the way, who will help him in his war with Cormac, which we know — from the John Wick movies — will ultimately lead to Winston not only taking over The Continental but inheriting Cormac’s right hand, Charon (Ayomide Adegun in the series, Lance Reddick in the Wick movies).

There’s a lot wrong with The Continental, not least of which is that it is darkly lit and looks like someone tried to recreate the look of Frank Miller’s Sin City with AI. As in the Wick movies, the plot is dull, but unlike the Wick films, there isn’t a string of eye-popping action sequences to paper over the plot. There is one semi-impressive sequence to open the series — Frankie’s theft of the coin grinder — but the action is woefully inadequate beyond that, and the car-chase sequence near the end of the premiere is bad green screen and loud noises designed to obscure the cheap effects.

As mediocre as The Continental is, though, the worst sin of all is Mel Gibson. Not just that Mel Gibson has been cast in it, but that Mel Gibson’s character is the most interesting character in The Continental, which is doubly disappointing because there is no real reason that Gibson had to be cast. Any competent character actor with a modicum of gravitas could have pulled it off, and yet they chose Gibson in a spin-off of a movie franchise popular because of its lead actor, the anti-Mel Gibson, Keanu Reeves. How does that make sense to anyone? It’s like deciding to create a Mr. Rogers prequel and casting Russell Brand. No one likes him, and to the extent that people tune in to The Continental, it’ll be in spite of instead of because of Mel Gibson. For anyone on the fence — and based on the quality of the series, that’s most everyone — Gibson is reason enough to check out of The Continental and never go back.