03-07-2025
‘The Old Guard 2,' Like Its Superheroes, Feels Ancient
So there are these immortals, y'see — folks who have been around for millennia, and are capable of healing from any wound, regenerating any severed limb. Cut off a finger? No problem! A group of these gifted, unkillable ass-kickers have banded together and, led by a centuries-old Scythian warrior named Andromache (Charlize Theron), will take on the dirtiest of mercenary jobs for a price. There's also Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), who fought in the Napoleonic Wars before joining up; Nicky (Martin Eden's Luca Marinelli), a former priest from Italy; and Joe (Marwan Kenzari), a former merchant from Iran. Both of these men first battled each other during the Crusades, continually trying to slay the other over many eras. The two eventually became lovers.
'Andy,' as she's known by her colleagues, runs a tight ship. Even when she's having issues with their latest recruit, a U.S. marine named Nile (KiKi Layne) who's just discovered she's an immortal, or is attempting to shield the group's existence from Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a nosy C.I.A agent, Andy watches everyone's backs and makes sure the job gets done. Calling themselves the Old Guard — get it? — they are the type of superheroic anti-heroes for whom ballads are written. Or comic books. Or screenplays that milk those comic books for a potentially lucrative franchise for a streaming service.
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Anyone who's not a die-hard stan (a Guardhead?) will definitely need a refresher before going into The Old Guard 2, which just dropped on Netflix, as the sequel to the 2020 movie assumes that viewers know every bit of backstory backwards and forwards. An impressive take on Greg Rucka's comic book series that benefited from the writer adapting his own work, the original Old Guard had a lot going for it: Theron capitalizing on her post-Atomic Blonde action-flick chops, director Gina Prince-Blythewood (Love & Basketball) finding a nice balance between character development and choreographed fight sequences, a same-sex love story that felt genuinely romantic in a genre usually allergic to even token LGBTQ+ representation.
What this second installment has in its favor is familiarity, a built-in fanbase — it remains one of Netflix's most popular original, blockbuster-style movies, according to Netflix — some extra star power in the form of Uma Thurman, and the fact that you don't need to extend much energy to pick up a remote control. That's really about it. Building off the deep lore of the first film and ending on a cliffhanger that telegraphs its creators are crossing their fingers for a third film, The Old Guard 2 is an extension of a story that takes your investment in these people, concepts, and situations. It's a new chapter in a saga, yet like its characters who've been practicing the art of war since Sun Tzu coined the term, the sequel somehow feels ancient and a little creaky.
Remember Quynh (Victoria Ngo), Andy's old immortal running partner who was sealed in a sarcophagus and dropped into the sea, sentenced to a life of perpetual drowning? She's been found and retrieved by Thurman's all-purpose bad guy, who goes by the supervillain handle Discord. Remember how Andy mysteriously lost her powers of regeneration partway through the first film, which is a huge disadvantage when your whole deal is 'warrior for hire who can never be killed?' That's still an issue. Remember when Copley decided that, rather than bust these off-the-books mercs, he'd help conceal their identities? The former intelligence agent is now aiding them in missions that involve, say, the occasional siege on a Croatian crimelord's fortress. Remember how Booker was sentenced to a year-long exile after shooting Andy? He's still persona non grata, but not for long.
Long story short, Discord has plans for using Quynh and her eye on Nile. This caricature of an all-powerful, morally bankrupt no-goodnik is actually the oldest immortal around. 'I was there, you know,' Discord says, staring at something offscreen. 'I can still remember it, the acrid stench of hate in the air.' Cut to: a painting of Jesus on the cross. [Slow clap] Nile, she believes, is the 'last immortal to ever be born,' and may hold the key to killing off everyone. Meanwhile, an immortal librarian named Tua (Henry Golding) thinks he knows why Andy lost her powers, and has a theory on how she might regain them.
Theron can still pull off the fight scenes. Thurman can still handle a katana like an expert, even if it's not one forged by Hattori Hanzo. Marinelli and Kanzari's kiss-kiss-bicker-bicker double act is still charming, if a little underutilized. New director Victoria Mahoney (whose personal narrative arc is a thousand times more interesting, moving and compelling than anything happening here) throws in the occasionally inventive bit of filmmaking, as when she stages Andy walking through an alleyway that morphs from one historical period to the next with every step she takes. Shots are fired, punches are thrown, and things blow up real good. Everyone reads their lines clearly, hits their marks, and the camera stays in focus.
There's a sneaking suspicion that, while Mahoney, Theron, her costars, and the crew are doing their best to sell this superhero story — and by extension a franchise that Netflix can use to produce numerous other sequels, possible TV spin-offs, etc. — in the most professional manner possible, The Old Guard 2 isn't quite the movie it wants you to think it is. Or rather, it's dangerously close to not being a movie at all so much as just one more piece of expensive 'content' that the streamer can slap into menus and use to game your viewing algorithms. If you have not been fully converted to Team Old Guard going into this, you will not click off your TV having suddenly become a O.G. devotee. And yet, because this has all of the busy bells and whistles we associate with blockbusters, it will likely be paraded as a runaway success story regardless. It's the oldest trick in the book.
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