Richard Madden was great in his hit series The Bodyguard on Netflix, and he shows glimmers of greatness in Citadel. But this series would have worked a lot better without Madden's character creating a family, and having flashbacks of, as they say "this other woman", while being an amnesiac after an explosion 8 years earlier. Keep the amnesia, make him a loner not knowing who he is and move the storyline on from there. Stanley Tucci is also great in Citadel and of course he's the one to inform Madden's character that he used to be a spy for this super-covert agency called Citadel. But unfortunately, Priyanka Chopra, who is Madden's costar, is simply not that great of an actress to me, and her character is just not needed in this. It weights this series down because she was his parter, his love interest (the woman in Madden's character's flashbacks) and was also in the same explosion and has amnesia. So now you're jumping from Madden's character to her character, both with somewhat parallel storylines, with only one of the storylines being interesting enough to hold the auidence's attention. Take a wild guess on which one. Then you have the nuclear code business (why not) which in this day and age, why wouldn't nuclear codes either expire or need someone else to coordinate their activation? But they don't in Citadel, so they need to be found. Come on now, nuclear codes in a suitcase are still active after 8 years...that's ridiculous. But I did like the idea of the wealthiest families controlling what is tantamount to everything. That's an interesting concept which should have been explored a bit more.
Citadel isn't a well thoughout series, and the fact that Amazon spent $300 million is absurd. Richard Madden's character is extremely stifled by the ridiculous dialogue, his relationship with Priyanka Chopra's character, the generic storyline with his family, the short episodes (a little over 35 minutes), the lack of any real chemistry between Madden and Chopra and his wife, and the overall scattershot nature of the series. That's a shame because Citadel could have been one of the best series on any streamer, but it feels rushed and in many ways, amatuerish. Amazon was too busy trying to get a mega global hit, they didn't see that in this series, the components for a true hit spy thriller series were there, but both the writers and the director failed to connect the elements that would make Citadel more cohesive. Citadel is all over the place, and with a rare few exceptions of cohesion, it just aimlessly wanders from one absurd sequence to another, which makes for a frustrating series. This is what happens when the powers-that-be want what they want, while being blissfully happy in a multimillion dollar bubble of denial, thinking it'll all work itself out in the end. In my opinion, it didn't work itself out, it simply became more ridiculous.
Citadel isn't a well thoughout series, and the fact that Amazon spent $300 million is absurd. Richard Madden's character is extremely stifled by the ridiculous dialogue, his relationship with Priyanka Chopra's character, the generic storyline with his family, the short episodes (a little over 35 minutes), the lack of any real chemistry between Madden and Chopra and his wife, and the overall scattershot nature of the series. That's a shame because Citadel could have been one of the best series on any streamer, but it feels rushed and in many ways, amatuerish. Amazon was too busy trying to get a mega global hit, they didn't see that in this series, the components for a true hit spy thriller series were there, but both the writers and the director failed to connect the elements that would make Citadel more cohesive. Citadel is all over the place, and with a rare few exceptions of cohesion, it just aimlessly wanders from one absurd sequence to another, which makes for a frustrating series. This is what happens when the powers-that-be want what they want, while being blissfully happy in a multimillion dollar bubble of denial, thinking it'll all work itself out in the end. In my opinion, it didn't work itself out, it simply became more ridiculous.