The Old Guard 2
Starring Charlize Theron, Ngô Thanh Vân and Uma Thurman
MA15+
3/5
Heavy on lore and light on worthwhile action, The Old Guard 2 is a flat, boring sequel to the 2020 first film.
Immortal mercenary Andy/Andromache (Charlize Theron) and her team must grapple with a powerful threat from her past.
Like the first film, The Old Guard 2 is beautifully-shot and the cast has strong chemistry, but this sequel features contrived dialogue, blunt exposition and a slow, uneventful plot that feels like an unfulfilling middle chapter.
The villains (especially Uma Thurman as Discord) are paper-thin, and Quynh’s (Ngô Thanh Vân) grudge against Andy for leaving her trapped at the bottom of the ocean for centuries feels silly for someone who can literally live forever.
The action is a severe downgrade from the first Old Guard film, with the cool choreography marred by quick cuts, sloppy framing and even foreground obstacles.
There are only a couple of decent fights toward the very end, but ‘it gets better later’ doesn’t mean much when “later” is 80 long minutes.
This is a very minor issue, but I dislike the tacky iMovie-looking location title-cards.
If Megan 2.0 is the Terminator 2 of its franchise (and even invites this comparison), then The Old Guard 2 is the Highlander 2: The Quickening of its franchise: a bigger, lore-expanding, inferior follow-up (though The Old Guard 2 isn’t nearly as bad as the legendarily bad Highlander 2).
As a medium-budget genre flick released to Netflix during lockdown, the first Old Guard in 2020 received more attention than it normally would have, but The Old Guard 2 can’t stand out with the cinemas back open or on its own merits.
The Old Guard 2 is streaming on Netflix, but you’d be better off rewatching the first film or any number of more competent action films starring Charlize Theron.
