A three-episode miniseries on the backstory of Winston, owner of the New York Continental in the John Wick film series, seems like an appropriately succinct amount of world-building for this side character until you look at the runtime: nearly 270 minutes. With three movie-length episodes containing one story of young Winston’s revenge arc involving the previous Continental figurehead, you might not be surprised to hear that The Continental has a slow pacing.
The Continental Storyline
The Continental: From the World of John Wick stars Colin Woodell as Winston Scott, who will later become the proprietor of the Continental, where the massive globe-spanning network of assassins can safely harbor between assignments. Drawn into this world by his lifelong delinquent brother, the well-dressed conman Winston returns home for a power struggle of international proportions.
Powers of the Criminal World Come Together at The Continental
Though John Wick was concerned with the actions and wills of a particularly adept assassin played by Keanu Reeves, it is a simple and effective revenge tale. The Continental, though far more interested in the heads of criminal organizations and their whims of violence and desperation to keep ahold of power, is the same kind of revenge story, as Winston and his brother have had problems with the Continental’s Cormac O’Connor since childhood. As the three episodes develop, the shift from the “consequences of your actions” to “let’s take revenge” adheres closer and closer to formulaic.
The John Wick sequels expanded the “consequences” narrative thrillingly, so seeing the opposite regression in The Continental is particularly disappointing. With no John Wick writers or directors credited with anything other than executive producer in this series, the style feels like imitation, and the choreography rarely reaches the definitive heights of the films. Directors Albert Hughes and Charlotte Brändström try their best to capture the fun that Chad Stahelski had in bringing John Wick to life, and the three writers/developers spin their wheels to fill the runtime of essentially three movies.
Colin Woodell in ‘The Continental: From the World of John Wick’
The Delight of Action and Violence
The Continental is not a completely worthless experience, since taken as a separate project, the show contains gun and hand-to-hand combat action galore. Like John Wick, the characters speak in typical action dialogue with intense line delivery, and the production has all the right looks to match the John Wick blend of grit and glamor. The middle episode gives the viewers the best reflection time on the cycle of revenge, violence, and grief with awareness of its endlessness, but since the whole story here could have fit in one film, the wait between action sequences occasionally sprinkled with John Wick Easter eggs will not be sufficient.
Is The Continental Worth the Time?
Since we already know where the series is going early on in the first episode, the journey to the conclusion of The Continental had to be more than this. Half or even a third less in length could have done wonders, and viewers will unquestionably miss the influence of Stahelski and the John Wick screenwriters. For any merits one can find here, three movie-length experiences written like television episodes are frankly inadmissible for a series known for taut action excitement. Unless you are looking for that big John Wick 3 type of battle sequence at the end of this miniseries, you can easily skip The Continental with zero consequences.
The Continental and the first three John Wick films are streaming now on Peacock.
