Amazon Studios is declassifying the first Citadel reviews. The new action-spy-thriller series from Anthony and Joe Russo’s AGBO and showrunner David Weil (Prime Video’s Hunters) reunites mind-wiped Tier-One agents Mason Kane (Bodyguard‘s Richard Madden) and Nadia Sinh (Quantico‘s Priyanka Chopra Jonas), who don’t remember their past lives as spies for a global organization called Citadel. Critic reviews arrived online Thursday ahead of the show’s April 28th series premiere on Amazon Prime Video, and reception is mixed: Citadel‘s Rotten Tomatoes score currently stands at just 55% approval from critics with 29 reviews counting toward the Tomatometer at the time of publishing.
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See a sampling of reviews below.
CNN: “The time-bending plot certainly won’t earn many pointsfor originality, but it’s the kind of meat-and-potatoes series thatshould find an attentive audience on Amazon, which has already tappedinto a similar vein with Jack Ryan and Reacher.”
The Daily Beast: “Citadel is the definition of generic, trading in stockespionage clichés dressed up with superficial embellishments in a mannernot unlike the Russos’ The Gray Man.”
Globe and Mail: “Citadel offers a spy versus spy story that starts off semi-stupid and quickly nosedives into unrelenting idiocy … Citadel finds comfort in the laziest of narrative devices. Thereare exposition dumps, eye-rolling twists, and faux-wittybanter.”
AV Club: “Citadel, no matter how superficially it tries, is nothing more than a varnished spy thriller with little to offer beyond generic genre garbage. Prime Video’s drama flails underneath its whopping $300 million budget (the second most expensive TV show after Lord Of The Rings) and beautiful locations (at least six places across the world are covered at breakneck speed in the premiere itself). None of this gloss fixes the show’s boring and predictable twists.”
Rolling Stone: “Citadel falls far, far short of transcendence, or even goodness. It is bland, generic, and almost shockingly cheap-looking, given the price tag. There are some minor charms, including the chance to watch stars Priyanka Chopra Jonas and Richard Madden look glamorous together, as well as the usual reliability of supporting players Stanley Tucci and Lesley Manville, so it’s not all bad. But it’s staggering to look at the finished product and understand why Amazon thought that this would be the start of an exponentially lucrative collection of projects.”
SF Chronicle: “Citadel, a new series on Prime Video, is a sleek, glossy spythriller that grabs the audience immediately and never loosens its grip.It’s a collection of spy movie cliches, but with all of them shined upand refurbished so that they seem almost fresh.”
Citadel takes place eight years after the titular independent global spy agency —tasked to uphold the safety and security of all people — was destroyedby operatives of Manticore, a powerful syndicate manipulating the worldfrom the shadows. With Citadel’s fall, elite agents Mason Kane (Madden) and Nadia Sinh (Chopra Jonas) had their memories wipedas they narrowly escaped with their lives. They’ve remained hidden eversince, building new lives under new identities, unaware of their pasts.
Until one night, when Mason is tracked down by his former Citadelcolleague, Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci), who desperately needs hishelp to prevent Manticore from establishing a new world order. Masonseeks out his former partner, Nadia, and the two spies embark on amission that takes them around the world in an effort to stop Manticore,all while contending with a relationship built on secrets, lies, and adangerous-yet-undying love.
The series executive produced by the Russos (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Endgame) is the first in what Amazon calls a “landmark global franchise,” with companion series set in Italy and India underway with international stars Matilda De Angelis (The Undoing), Varun Dhawan (Bawaal), and Samantha Ruth Prabhu (The Family Man).
Citadel drops its first two episodes April 28th on Amazon Prime Video, with new episodes rolling out on Fridays.
