In the content war waged by streaming platforms – which have nevertheless agreed to increase prices, pass on advertising to us and deprive us of account sharing – certain SVOD services have found their hobby horse, their little privileged breeding ground. For Prime Video, if Heroic Fantasy holds a good place in the catalog, it is espionage which has the best role with films and series in continuous production. Jack Ryan, Reacher, The Terminal List, Mr & Mrs Smith…The list is very long. The studio now owns the license James Bond likes to play with the intricacies of the genre, but it always needs its dose of action, secret agency, betrayal and political conspiracy. In 2023, it is the Russo brothers, responsible for the biggest Marvel successes, who will take charge of Citadel, a series having experienced quite a few complications to the point that the creative team had to be renewed several times before delivering a tedious final version.
Result, if the brothers are only executive producers, we see their hand behind the creation of Josh Appelbaum and Citadel is not unpleasant to watch thanks to a sustained pace which promises a twist every ten minutes (we counted), two handsome actors and a mix between Mission : Impossible et Jason Bourne. Watchable yes, but above all forgettable, because it only accumulate clichés of the genre without adding the slightest touch of originality. On review aggregator sites, press or public, she is content to be average, not less and certainly not more. From there to thinking that the series had the potential to become a franchise, there was more than a step, but the figures having apparently been there, the law of the market is ruthless. So while waiting for season 2, Citadel: Diana disembarks.
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The story takes place over two eras. In 2022 where Diana, aka Agent 308, is a member of Citadel infiltrated within Manticore Italy as Citadel prepares to be wiped out; and in 2030 where Diana and her new haircut try to leave Manticore as big changes within the organization are brewing.
A hair’s breadth away from breaking up with Citadel
There are three categories of spin-offs. The first will spend her time making crude references to her model. The second will attempt the balancing act between heritage and renewal. The third seems to be unaware that it is a spin-off. In the manner of a Paris Has Fallen as close to its parent franchise as Vin Diesel is to a Best Actor Oscar, Citadel: Diana only sticks to its elder by the physicality of its casting, its temporality and its capacity to repeat “ Manticore » et « Citadel » as if to remember it herself.
A link so little kept that the advantage is to be able to start on the series without needing a catch-up session. The few obscure elements are ultimately explicit enough throughout the flashbacks so as not to feel wronged. New story, new characters and no previously seen faces to play the wink. For once, we recognize this desire of the show to stand out from its model and to give the note with your own music. Risky bet, but accepted with an almost entirely Italian team led by Alessandro Fabbri. The Russos and Appelbaum are sticking around as executive producers, not interfering with this new baby.
A demarcation which is felt in the atmosphere since there are no more systematic twists and turns. The atmosphere is calmer, focused around four characters and the family drama replaces a good part of the action. If the Diana of the series tries to escape Manticore and good hair taste, the Diana of the title seems close to getting rid of Citadel.
Nothing to do with hair
It takes a certain courage to break away from one’s model and it takes talent to make something correct out of it. Lack of bowl cut, Citadel: Diana is as interesting to follow as a conference on the cultivation of pistachio from our ancestors to the present day (however, we have nothing against those who are interested, everyone has their own hobbies). The omnipresent twists and turns of Citadel at least made it possible to revive a weak plot. What is sorely missing from this spin-off which covered everything it had to tell in one episode and which will only skate the next five. She will try to move forward at times, but more out of obligation than out of desire; so that the twist arrives like a hair in the soup by obscuring previously installed elements which invalidate the said twist. It seems that the writers are using the well-known strategy of “ if I don’t talk about it anymore, it no longer exists ».
Where Citadel copied all the works of espionage, Diana does the same with the mafia genre. We find this same lack of inspiration there where the famous Manticore, which frightened Citadel, is, in the end, only a small clan war between criminals. Futuristic gadgets aside, nothing differentiates the series from any show recounting power struggles within the Italian mafia. The cliché is everywhere, all the time, and even the actors take great care to correspond to a stereotype. Except Matilda De Angelis, mono-expressive in the role of a talented spy who has panic attacks as soon as she feels emotions (not very practical in her profession, of course).
And lack of freshness combined with a lack of control since the series will also fail in the way, like a useless introductory flashforward since we will have the answer only fifteen minutes later and it will not contribute anything in particular to the rest of the story. As Citadel, Diana repeats what she has seen elsewhere until it is staged, only less well. A useless, uninteresting show which will fascinate us more around its heroine’s hair test than by its plot.
Citadel Diana is on Prime Video
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