The Old Guard 2 — botched sequel is stripped of everything that made its predecessor memorable

Daily Maverick

3 days ago

It's been five years, but the immortal mercenaries of comic adaptation The Old Guard, led by Charlize Theron's axe-wielding Andy, are back in a movie sequel on Netflix. Somehow, though, in that time the franchise has lost its edge.
Back in Covid times, audiences were starved for fresh blockbuster entertainment. Cinemas were closed. People were stuck at home. Enter streaming services, especially Netflix, with their own selection of big-budget movie escapism delivered directly to your TV screen.
One of the films that ticked those boxes and stood out from this period was 2020's The Old Guard. Based on the comic series by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández, and written by Eisner Award-winning Rucka himself, The Old Guard mixed visceral action with musings on mortality, and threw in some surprising LGBT+ representation as it focused on a group of unkillable mercenaries. For centuries, this band has been secretly fighting on the side of good, although leader Andy (Charlize Theron), AKA axe-wielding Andromache of Scythia, has grown cynical. Her efforts seem pointless when the world seems as dark, violent and cruel as ever.
Without giving anything away, by the time sequel The Old Guard 2 starts – watch it on Netflix now – Andy has embraced her mission with renewed enthusiasm. The issue now is the emergence of a hitherto unknown immortal, much older than Andy and her squad: Discord (Uma Thurman), who was formerly paired with immortality expert Tuah (Henry Golding). While Tuah proves to be an ally, sour-faced Discord is out to destroy Andy, and that starts by unleashing the latter's mentally unstable ex, and original companion, Quỳnh (Veronica Ngô), who has turned misanthropic after centuries of torment.
It all sounds good and well on paper, but fans of the original soon realise that Part 2 of the onscreen Old Guard saga has stripped out everything that made its predecessor memorable. The edges are gone; Andy's labrys is blunted.
Almost immediately, The Old Guard 2 rolls back or retcons the narrative choices that introduced a meaty sense of consequence by the end of the first film. What's a bigger punishment for a lonely immortal than subjecting them to a century of exile from their found family? Well, it turns out it doesn't matter. Six months later they're welcomed back into the fold. No spoilers, but there's an even bigger plot point reversal, paired with some clunky, nonsense exposition.
Now, it can be argued that this is comic tradition – no one stays dead; there's always a workaround to return to the status quo. Certainly, The Old Guard 2 has a strong comic book feel in its choices of locations and set décor. This includes a secret Chinese nuclear facility that is all chrome, glass and neon, and could be mistaken for a modern art gallery, or Discovery's Sandton headquarters.
However, it's impossible to forgive how, repeatedly, The Old Guard 2 botches its handling of what made the original work. For example, the action scenes. You can get creative and brutal when you're dealing with characters who have instantaneous healing, but barring one dismembered finger and a gruesomely torn ankle, it doesn't feature in the film. Even worse, with a switch from The Woman King's Gina Prince-Bythewood to Victoria Mahoney in the director's chair, something has gone horribly wrong with the hand-to-hand fight choreography. Combat lacks punchiness, feeling instead like someone filmed a slowed-down rehearsal.
To be fair, The Old Guard 2 does feature one sequence with memorable visual flair. A stroll through the back alleys of Rome transports Andy back through time. But that's it. And, on top of it all, queer themes are dampened down to be nearly nonexistent. A passionate kiss between two male characters in the first film, following a poetic declaration of love, has no equivalent here. The closest moment in the sequel is when the same characters chastely touch foreheads.
There's no shortage of talent in The Old Guard 2, which also features Chiwetel Ejiofor in a key supporting role, but nobody has much to work with, barring Matthias Schoenaerts with a concluding character arc. Thurman looks like she doesn't want to be there, and her performance sits in the no man's land between overblown and sinisterly subdued. Meanwhile, though it's no fault of the actors, the long-awaited reunion between Theron's Andy and Ngô's Quỳnh is completely lacking in emotional payoff, going the route of clichéd and superficial conversations instead.
Then again, it turns out that The Old Guard 2 is a lot like Pirates of the Caribbean 2 in the sense it expands on a story that didn't necessarily need further exploration. Ultimately, it cheekily serves as a stepping stone to a third Old Guard instalment, with no satisfying resolution whatsoever. DM