‘Citadel’ Review: An Overly Ambitious Generic Spy Action-Thriller

It must be hard for the Russo Brothers. In the space of a decade, the team of directors managed to come from small television projects and then into what would be the biggest blockbuster movies that the world has ever seen. Starting with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the Russo Brothers cemented themselves as the best of the best when it came to making Marvel movies. However, their tenure at Marvel is over, and since then, the Russo Brothers have been in a horrifying limbo. Citadel on Amazon Prime is the latest disaster project from the pair.

Citadel is a TV series developed for Amazon Prime Video and created by David Weil. The series stars Richard Madden, Priyanka Chopra, Stanley Tucci, and Lesley Manville. The series tells the story of Mason Kane, a super spy agent from a mysterious spy collective called “Citadel.” However, after a terrible mission ends with him losing his memory, Mason creates a new life for himself. It all seems to go well for Mason until an old friend brings him back to the fold as the threat of world destruction looms on the horizon.

Citadel might be run by David Weil, who so far has been able to work on various projects simultaneously, including Hunters, also for Amazon, and Invasion, for Apple TV+. It seems like David Weil has a very particular way of making TV series, which only gets confirmed with Citadel. Hunters, for example, had a fantastic premise, and it even managed to get Al Pacino, to be in it. However, the tone, the pacing, the writing, and the way the series looked all fell into the generic category. The same thing happens with Citadel, which is just a shame.

Citadel is overly ambitious, and it seems like the executives on Amazon bought the pitch immediately thanks to the influence of the Russo Brothers, who serve here as executive producers. The Russo have been able to go around to basically every streaming service company and sell them these very expensive and generic projects. The Russo seems to be still riding the wave of their fame post-Infinity War/Endgame. The result is some of the most disappointing projects in recent memory, especially with them behind the camera.

Other projects, such as Extraction and Everything Everywhere All At Once, have managed to escape the terrible curse that follows the Russo in their post-Marvel era, but it seems like Citadel is not one of those shows. The fact that Citadel is the second most expensive TV series of all time tells you everything you need to know. Why? Because this thing definitely doesn’t look or feel like a $300 million project. It doesn’t look bad, and during certain action sequences, you can feel that the money is on the screen, but what it is showing doesn’t justify that price.

Citadel presents us with a story that is clearly inspired by the James Bond franchise, with secret spy organizations going rampant and even having their own “evil organization” like the James Bond movies used to have. Does someone remember Quantum? Anyhow, the story the series presents in such an explosive fashion is nothing more than a big cliché. The fact that our main character suffers from amnesia at the show’s beginning is already a red flag. One that tells us that nothing here is different from countless other stories that have used that trope before.

Tropes are not bad, as many other critics would say. They are tools that help us define characters and create stories. However, like any other tool, they must be used correctly in the execution and context phases. What does this mean? It means that just adding tropes on top of each other doesn’t make for a good story or characters. Sadly, Citadel fails consistently at creating both stories and characters. The beginning of this tale, which already has a second season secured, is just quite messy, and the characters are the definition of boredom.

How does Amazon expect people to watch the show for several seasons if no characters are worth following? It is hard to say, but it reveals that Amazon is suffering with Citadel, the same thing they have been suffering with the Rings of Power. They have spent enormous amounts of money on these shows with no specific appeal and continue to think they can brute force their way to success by throwing more money at it. Meanwhile, cheaper shows like “The Bear” on Hulu are telling stories worth watching.

Yes, Citadel is very well shot; the editing works, the performances are there, and the dialogue fills us in on all the massive amounts of exposition we need to go through to learn about this world. However, while all these elements have an acceptable quality, none of them feel like they have a soul. There is certainly a fear that AI will start writing the shows we watch in the next couple of years, which will kill the art of writing. However, with shows like Citadel being produced by humans, maybe having AI write the scripts sounds like a good idea.

Amazon Prime has a lot of money to spend. It makes sense; Amazon is one of the biggest companies in the entire world. And yet, it seems like they don’t know how to spend such amounts of money. $300 million on Citadel feels more like a huge waste of money. Amazon could have greenlit better, smaller shows with that amount of money. Smaller shows would have found their audiences by being more unique. Instead, we are trapped with a show that is not unique and that surely will not gather a huge following.

There are better things to watch on Amazon, like The Boys, a show with its own personality. The streaming wars have really managed to deliver some truly authentic gems, but now that the ceiling for their growth is apparent, we might see fewer monsters like this one in the future. As a TV series, Citadel works best as background noise.

SCORE: 5/10