The Old Guard 2 Review: Will the Sequel Surpass the Original? Let’s Find Out Together

The Old Guard 2 Review: The Old Guard 2, which arrived on streaming on July 2nd, five years after the first chapter, the first ten minutes are enough to demolish every single trace of the good things done by the predecessor. Ten minutes that are a manifesto of a senseless, boring action, without a crumb of taste. A clear example of a project assigned to those who demonstrate that they do not have the faintest idea of how to manage the material in their hands. In this case, Victoria Mahoney, who takes over Prince-Bythewood, a director who hasn’t made films since 2011 (in the middle of a bit’ TV and second units) and massacres an already senseless script on which Rucka returns, this time together with Sarah L. Walker. When The Old Guard arrived on Netflix in 2020, a film focused on the adventures of a group of immortal mercenaries, that story brought a light breeze of news. It did not mess up the rules of the catalogue game to be replenished day by day with often mediocre works, but at least Gina Prince-Bythewood’s film had the virtue of transposing with conviction and with a stimulating international cast the comic of the same name by Greg Rucka, for the occasion also a screenwriter.

It presented notable changes, but, in general terms, it could be seen because the characters were respected, and it managed to reach genuinely exciting moments. The path of the sequel, The Old Guard 2, which has just seen the light on the platform, has been much more tortuous and has inflicted wounds on the production that are evident during viewing. After starting filming in 2022, filming stopped and was put on standby before resuming. So everything suffers: the record, the internal coherence of the film, and, above all, the enormous wait that makes the future uncertain. From the beginning, although viewers are familiar with the story, some small summary or recapitulation is missing to get to the point. And from there, all the bad decisions that were made in the first film begin to weigh heavily on this sequel: it only saves the situation, Charlize Theron, whose involvement and professionalism are irreproachable, and some specific sequence of action. For the rest, there is a general reluctance, like a leaden lack of faith, that destroys the tone of the film.

The Old Guard 2 Review: The Story Plot

Set six months after the predecessor’s closing events, The Old Guard 2 resumes with Andromeda, now mortal, driving his team of imperishable warriors, specializing in covert operations, all with the ability to heal even the most serious wounds. The group acts in the shadows, carrying out mercenary missions, trying to make the world a better place little by little. We therefore find the latest arrival, the couple of centuries-old lovers formed by Joe and Nicky, and the technology expert James Copley, a normal man who has joined their cause. Following a successful raid on criminals, the group is contacted by Booker, a fellow man of theirs who had betrayed the team found out that Qunh, Andy’s closest friend, managed to escape from her iron prison at the bottom of the ocean, where she had been locked up 500 years earlier. Andy, tormented by guilt for not saving her then, hesitates to meet her, while in the meantime, the mysterious Discordia, believed to be the first immortal ever, plots something with suspicious intent…

Red Notice, The Gray Man, and the singer company. In this case, an even more sonorous thud because it is unable to capitalize on a solid starting base that things like the streaming platform had important faces for a while all over the world, an adventure frame, barrels, feelings. The story resumes (without summary, for once that perhaps served) where the first film ended. Andy (Charlize Theron) accepts her mortality not without effort, when she and her team (Kiki Lane, Marwan Kenzari, our Luca Marinelli, Chiwetel EjioFor) are threatening two new and feared opponents. One comes directly from the past of Andromaca: it is Quỳnh (Vân Veronica Ngô), who appeared in the final of the first The Old Guard and on whose traces it was the Reietto Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts).

The other is Discord (Uma Thurman), according to the words of the new entry, Tuah (Henry Golding), the oldest immortal, intent on cleaning the group clean. Under The Old Guard 2, inconsistent from the beginning to the end of its tiring 106 minutes of duration, the question arises: what qualifies the emotions and thoughts of millenary beings, who have crossed countless events, joys, and above all, pains? While the film is asking by squeezing your eyes in an expression of profound inner reflection, in us, the disbelief of how we can commit so much to finding one after the other visual and aesthetic solutions among the laziest, anti-dynamic, and anti-cinematographic possible solutions. Yet this should first of all be an action film. Mahoney, however, seems to want to row independently against impalpable choreography, continuously breaking the shots and the rhythm, not bringing to logical fulfillment any scene and not getting right half a link – here it is not clear if the assembly (Mattew Schmidt) is in the guilt competition or victim of a rough material.

The Old Guard 2 Review and Analysis

The Old Guard 2 starts with a shocking introductory sequence… if you remember the plot. It is time to rescue Quynh, who is going to unleash a real storm in Andy’s life since he is going to return with an unprecedented thirst for revenge. She continues to lead her group in the meantime, but keeps a secret the fact that she has lost the gift of immortality, which forces her to expose herself dangerously in every battle in which they fight. Meanwhile, Booker remains in exile for his betrayal and thus pays the consequences of having broken the group’s trust, although in reality, everyone is eager to support him so that he does not collapse. Nile, Joe, Nicky and James Copley begin an investigation when a powerful threat looms over the group so that they can only add an old friend, Tuah, who could hold the key to solving the mystery of the loss of immortality, but also the so-called “transfer” of the gift between two individuals, which could save Andy.

Because of the way the script is structured, The Old Guard 2, it feels like you’re pulling rabbits out of your hat all the time. Not only does it not clarify anything about immortality, the individuals who carry the gift or its origin, but at a certain point, it abandons all logic and clings to a “just because”. Introducing new members to the cast may seem exciting because Uma Thurman and Henry Golding are two great signings, but unfortunately, they do not have time to shine on screen and overshadow the group, which should be the most important part of the story. They and their honest, enduring relationship with resonance over time are the basis of everything. The relationship between Andy and Nile does not prosper too much either, or there is a trace of general disappointment when a relationship reaches a completely open ending as a cliffhanger. Will we ever know the outcome of this adventure? It seems very unlikely, given that the premiere of this second installment has arrived through the back door to the platform, without any promotion or a firm commitment to it. A complete disappointment, because the source material deserved much more.

If in the original, compared to the average of the genre, the action scenes were partially missing, The Old Guard 2 he immediately wants to set the record straight with a radical change of register: the prologue, between bare-knuckle fights, shootouts and reckless chases on four wheels, shows its muscles and establishes the muscular and choreographic appeal which will be from there to come. And this sequel works at times more than the prototype, precisely because of this clearer stance that brings it closer to an energetic soul big-budget B-movies, without excessive pretensions whatsoever. You have fun during the hundred or broken minutes of viewing, and it doesn’t matter if the various steps, between deeds of sacrifice and (in)expected betrayals, are relatively predictable. The gearbox behind the camera, with Victoria Mahoney replacing his colleague Gina Prince-Bythewood, benefits from dynamism and concreteness.

The director, whose only other film in her career was the appreciated debut, presented in competition at the Berlin Film Festival, namely the dramatic Yelling to the Sky (2011), finds the right synthesis between nineties atmospheres and modernity, with all that John Wick has significance for the next-generation Western action blockbuster. And Theron, who had already divinely brought her hands in Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) and Atomic Blonde (2017), is exploited here in an intelligent way, finding new allies and very respectable antagonists. If the central nucleus of key figures returns – we then find KiKi Layne, Marwan Kenzari, our Luca Marinelli, Matthias Schoenaerts and Chiwetel Ejiofor – the arrival of new entries such as the Vietnamese Veronica Ngo and the superstar Uma Thurman they can only be an added value. If you don’t know the premiere, seen among other things in a small role in Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017), our advice is to recover the martial arts diptych composed of Sequel (2019) and Furies (2022), also available at Netflix; the blonde actress of Kill Bill instead, he returns to action after a long time, for one showdown, although not definitive, certainly forced but undoubtedly with a significant impact.

Some sequences show a certain personality, like when Andy finds himself crossing a place well known to her and the landscape changes over time through his memories, and locations are carefully exploited: the boot is a favorite stage, with Rome, Trieste, and Lake Iseo at the center of some key passages. To miss The Old Guard 2 is a pinch of personality, a flaw that penalized his predecessor even more. But unlike the aforementioned, which although well created was relatively cold and devoid of mother scenes worthy of the name, in this new adventure of the immortals there is a greater awareness, not only on the part of these protagonists in search of their place in a world that they have been trampling on for centuries, but also of a story that lays the foundations for a future continuously expanding. Although the fate of the franchise is still uncertain today, we hope to be able to witness a third piece to at least close the trilogy, also because of that open cliffhanger which closes the vision.

Failing miserably in what should be its center of gravity, The Old Guard 2 makes you think that, perhaps, it wants to look for something else. A more emotional nucleus, a reflection on the sidereal passage of time, so much as to lose the measure of the reason for life. Well, here too we touch the abyss with a ragged script in brief, where these immortals who have lived on the cooked and the raw are all too lucid, composed, and sane to be credible when they profess to be broken inside. An operation that smacks of a basket of ‘everything for two euros’. From the terrible directorial choices (someone shoots down those drones!), to the clashes between clay puppets, passing through a chronic inability to stop and give volume to the relationships between the characters, so colorless as to cancel out what was decent in the first chapter.

Not to mention the caricature use made of Thurman, framed to collect again and again the remnants of a career in reflection of her most iconic role, the one in Kill Bill. As if it weren’t and we didn’t have enough, The Old Guard 2 also leaves everything hanging on a cliffhanger. By cutting with the hatchet a dramatic arc that is already dramatic in itself, that is, the idiocy is allowed not to close narratively. Everything is pending. Hoping, or threatening, another chapter in the wake of this one. Then the appeal is to re-educate ourselves to choose, to say no, to move on. Out there, even within these endless catalogues, it is chock-full of valuable films, for all palates and all cravings. The invitation to exercise an economy, albeit minimal, of the gaze. Don’t settle, leave where the mischievous laziness productive of an unjustifiable, unappealing, inadmissible junk like that of The Old Guard 2 deserves to be: at the bottom.

The Old Guard 2 Review: The Last Words

Looking for the hair in the egg, you can notice narrative solutions that are out of tune and partly distorted with what was seen in the first film, as well as completely new implications designed for live-action and absent in the original comic. But The Old Guard 2, despite not yet being a perfect film, takes a small step forward in terms of charisma and personality, entering the souls and torments of these characters who have been alive for centuries but yet still unfinished. The return of old acquaintances and the arrival of “new” adversaries expands a lore with great potential, with the notable new entries of Veronica Ngo and Uma Thurman, and the action soul is snappy and incisive at the right point, in an operation that finally no longer hides its b-movie nature of special occasions. Predictable but fun, this new adventure from Charlize Theron’s Andy and her group of immortals knows how to entertain.

Cast: Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, Matthias Schoenaerts, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Uma Thurman, Henry Golding

Director: Victoria Mahoney

Streaming Platform: Netflix

Filmyhype.com Ratings: 2.5/5 (two and a half stars)