Five years after The Old Guard became a hit on Netflix, its sequel finally arrives, titled simply The Old Guard 2. The film picks up six months after The Old Guard left off and doesn’t waste time recapping the previous film (though there is a handy explainer available). In case you forgot, Andy (Charlize Theron) is an immortal warrior who loses her immortality just as she introduces a newly minted immortal, Nile (Kiki Layne), into her group of undying mercenaries. The first film poses some heady questions about mortality, morality, and the substance of life, which gives it a little more oomph than your typical superhero movie. The Old Guard 2, however, trades depth for a lore expansion pack which makes the sequel a downgrade from the first film.
Gina Prince-Bythewood trades directing duties with Victoria Mahoney, while writer Greg Rucka, who also penned the comic books the films are based on, is back, though he’s co-credited with Sarah L. Walker this time. The Old Guard 2 gets off to a stylish start, with Andy and her team, now working with shady operator Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), storming a luridly decorated mansion on the Dalmatian coast. It’s a fun sequence, enlivened by Charlize Theron’s swaggy performance as Andy, who has rediscovered her joy in living now that her mortality has a ticking clock. She’s matched by a charmingly cocky Kiki Layne, and Luca Marinelli and Marwan Kenzari return as immortal lovers Nicky and Joe, too. There’s a fun car chase, some great action, a gross bit showing the amount of physical abuse the immortals can take and still keep going, in all, it’s a strong start to the film.
Unfortunately, The Old Guard 2 cannot maintain that momentum. There are some nice touches throughout, such as a sequence in which the centuries melt away as Andy walks through Rome, tracing her long life in that city, but there is also a noticeable and distressing amount of additional dialogue recording, particularly in the first half of the film, which means the audio is distractingly out of synch with the actors (it also suggests something significant got changed behind the scenes).
Despite the energy of the opening sequence, The Old Guard 2 quickly gets bogged down in lore, which is rather disappointing for a film franchise that so sleekly handled worldbuilding in the first installment. To be fair, The Old Guard 2 doesn’t waste a lot of time on exposition, either, but that just means the lore becomes confusing and seemingly arbitrary, more a deus ex machina than real storytelling. In this installment we learn that immortality can be given and taken away, and Nile has something to do with the process. The film clocks in at 107 minutes, and this element is rushed and underexplained.
Andy was initially presented as the first immortal, but there is now an even older immortal known as Discord (Uma Thurman, acting with a hamminess that harkens back to her Poison Ivy days, which worked better in that context than this) who has designs on Nile and using her to end all immortals. Why she wants to do this is also unexplained, which wouldn’t be so bad if we had any context for this character at all. The first film got away with a lack of exposition because the characters felt so tangible and lived in. Here, though, the story is rushed, with character arcs rushed and many left unresolved. Nicky and Joe get the shortest end of the stick, their romance almost entirely sidelined, as are they. The ensemble is not as tightly knit this time around, though Henry Golding makes for a welcome addition as the immortal librarian, Tuah, and Vân Veronica Ngô is great as the resurrected Quynh.
It's the difference 20 minutes less of run time makes. There is no time for any story or character beats to breathe, we’re constantly rushing to the next set piece. And it’s all done with a perfunctory feel, the film going through the motions without any real verve or energy. The actors try their best to overcome these shortcomings, especially Matthias Schoenaerts and Theron and Ngô, who do their level best to inject some real emotion into the extremely rushed arc of their characters reuniting and reconciling after a betrayal and centuries apart. Honestly, it feels like the whole of this film should just be about Andy and Quynh reconciling, but that takes a backseat to Discord’s half-baked plan.
And then The Old Guard 2 commits the possibly fatal sin of ending on a cliffhanger when part three is not guaranteed. There is no resolution, the film simply stops. It’s infuriating, and makes the rushed, uneven storytelling of the film feel even less worthwhile. It’s a shame, really, because The Old Guard was smarter than the average superhero movie and did so much well just by avoiding franchise traps, when part two is dumbed down and commits numerous franchise sins. The Old Guard gave us a thoughtful superhero movie while The Old Guard 2 is exactly the kind of bland, formulaic storytelling that makes the genre so wearisome.
The Old Guard 2 is now streaming exclusively on Netflix.
