Brief Story Line
Set years before the events of the original series, Andres de Fonolossa aka Berlin (Pedro Alonso - Gran Hotel TV series etc) was planning a heist on jewels to be auctioned worth around Euro 44 million. He enlisted the help from his old friend Damian (Tristán Ulloa - Warrior Nun TV series etc) along with Keila the hacker (Michelle Jenner - Los hombres de Paco TV series etc), Berlin's trusted guy Roi (Julio Peña Fernández - Through My Window etc), Bruce (Joel Sanchez) and newcomer Cameron (Begoña Vargaz - Welcome to Eden TV series etc).
During the heist, the team had to do surveillance on the manager of the auction house Francois (Julien Paschal), but Berlin somehow felt intrigued and later fell for the wife Camille (Samantha Siqueiros) which obviously made things complicated.
So would they be able to complete the heist and what would happen to Berlin and the team? You could find out in this series.
End of Brief Story Line
OK, I have to admit that I am a major fan of Money Heist series. Though I began watching only after the whole seasons were completed few years ago, I still considered it to be one of the best heist series to date. So when it was announced there would be a spin off series focusing on the character Berlin, I obviously would not want to miss it. And once I started watching the first episode of this series, I immediately felt nostalgic, especially with the appearance of Berlin and the way he gave lecture on his heist plan that was similar to the way Professor did.
However, as the story progressed I could sense that this would be a lot lighter and was further enhanced with the humorous approach on Berlin's behavior (it's delightful to see him so hopelessly in love like a teenager). Though it might be fun, I somehow felt that the heist itself became not the main focus. And it became less and less of main plot while the love story & romance of the characters were more emphasized. The rather simple and brief heist itself (which was too short to my opinion) did not really help to make me fully excited. Only during the final two episodes that I started to feel the rush and intensity which made me loved Money Heist so much.
This series' cast generally were pretty decent, but Pedro Alonso really stood out in this group of new cast. Aside from him, Tristán Ulloa (whom I did not recognize without his beard) also left a good impression to me, probably because his character was different and his chemistry with Berlin was a joy to see. In addition to the names I mentioned above, there were also support characters like Camille's best friend Susi (Maria Isabel Rodriguez), the Limoncello lady (Belén López) and few others. But none were better than the appearances of characters from the Money Heist series (I would let you see for yourself who they were).
There were not as many action scenes in here and the heist itself I thought was pretty intelligent, though not as totally complicated like in the original. I can understand the wish of the series creator Alex Pina and Esther Martínez Lobato to make this one lighter, but the downside of it was it made me feel like I was watching a romance drama series with heist as background. It was OK, but a bit unexpected and probably not the most entertaining heist series for me personally. So if you decide to give this a try and hoping for something very similar to Money Heist, then you need to manage your expectation. But if you just want to watch a light heist series with a lot of romance and panoramic views of Paris (at least on TV cause it was definitely not the same in real life), likely you would enjoy this a lot. And looking at the ending, it's possible they were thinking of making further seasons.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
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