The Old Guard 2 is in need of some new tricks!
by Ed B.
When Gina Prince-Bythewood’s The Old Guard debuted in 2020, it felt like the rare comic book adaptation that wore its pulp credentials with a grin. Snappy banter, gory set pieces, and a surprisingly tender meditation on eternal life made the original more fun than it had any right to be. Five years later, Victoria Mahoney inherits the director’s chair and reassembles almost everyone for a second outing, but she forgets to pack the mischief that powered her predecessor. The Old Guard 2 is a handsomely mounted, competently acted sequel that nonetheless limps under the weight of tangled mythology and solemn self-importance. It is the cinematic equivalent of an ancient warrior who keeps swinging but has misplaced her sense of play.
The film opens promisingly enough. Patching up the dangling threads from the first installment, Mahoney drops us into a covert extraction in Marrakesh in which Andy (Charlize Theron) and Nile (KiKi Layne) rescue a cluster of political prisoners. The sequence is brisk, brutal, and gratifyingly practical, reminding viewers why this franchise once felt like a scrappier antidote to Marvel’s CGI overload. However, almost as soon as the old gang regroups, Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts) seeking redemption after his exile, Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) now acting as mission control, the screenplay by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez slams on the brakes. Rather than catapult us toward new horizons, it drags us into lore so convoluted you half expect an on-screen flowchart.
Enter Uma Thurman’s Discord, an immortal whose reputation has preceded her for millennia. Thurman glides through her first scenes like a rock star arriving fashionably late to her own concert, all velvet menace and sly, sideways smiles. Discord’s introduction should have electrified the movie; instead it sparks a narrative detour thick with Highlander-esque flashbacks, antique sword choreography, and sonorous mumblings about “the Quintessence,” a mystical MacGuffin that promises to rewrite what it means to be immortal. Imagine an awkward marriage between the original film’s grounded mercenary antics and the hasty world-building of Highlander II, minus the camp. The tonal mismatch is jarring.
Mahoney shows flashes of flair whenever fists and bullets fly. One mid-movie ambush in a crumbling Venetian palazzo, shot largely with steadicam and minimal cuts, ranks among the franchise’s best action beats. Yet the director’s precise staging can’t disguise the fact that every burst of momentum is followed by a symposium on immortal politics. The script introduces a shadow council, a renegade sect, and a centuries-old feud between Andy and Discord that is never dramatized so much as recited. Worse, the banter that once sold the quartet’s camaraderie has been reduced to dour pep talks. Schoenaerts’ Booker, previously the sardonic backbone of the team, spends most of his screen time apologizing. Ejiofor’s Copley contributes PowerPoint exposition in a bunker, only occasionally reminded to crack a smile.
Theron still radiates weary gravitas, but even she seems shackled by the screenplay’s need to treat Andy as a myth rather than a person. Nile fares better. Layne projects fresh-faced determination and lends the film its rare sparks of humor. Her scenes sparring verbally and physically with Discord hint at the generational clash the sequel might have explored more deeply. What does forever mean to someone who has barely begun living versus someone who has seen empires crumble? Unfortunately, each thematic thread is knotted with too many others. By the hour mark you may find yourself longing for a simple rescue-and-escape plot that lets these immortals shoot, stab, and wisecrack their way across continents.
Technical polish is not the problem. Style without spark grows wearisome. When a film about undying warriors feels this morose, you begin to suspect it has mistaken depth for cleverness. In seeking to expand its mythology, The Old Guard 2 jettisons the breezy esprit de corps that made fans clamor for more in the first place.
The most dispiriting choice arrives in the final fifteen minutes. After two hours of portentous speeches and half-explained relics, the movie halts mid-conflict, offering a blatant “To be continued…” that lands more like an IOU than a promise. Cliffhangers are fine when the journey has been exhilarating; here they feel presumptuous. It is difficult to muster enthusiasm for a third installment when the second has spent so much energy setting the table and so little actually feeding us. Dune: Part One earned its ellipsis through grandeur and surprise. The Old Guard 2 tries to bluff its way there with lore it has yet to make compelling.
That is not to say the sequel is without pleasures. Watching Theron and Thurman share the screen is a small pop culture miracle, a collision of ’90s action royalty that occasionally crackles. Mahoney’s commitment to on-set stunt work results in action that hits harder than many of Netflix’s algorithmic thrill rides. A late-film one-take featuring Nile sprinting across rooftops while reloading a shotgun on the move provides a visceral jolt of adrenaline—the kind of sequence that reminds you why endless life and endless gunfire can be a hoot. Moments like these, however, are scattered like gold coins at the bottom of a labyrinth: shiny, but difficult to reach without frustration.
In the end, The Old Guard 2 is a serviceable chapter rather than a satisfying sequel. It deepens the mythology but forgets that mythology alone isn’t story. Story is what we feel when characters clash, laugh, bleed, and occasionally dance on a cargo plane to Frank Ocean. The first movie understood that absurdity is part of the allure. By taking itself so seriously, the second edges perilously close to self-parody but without the wink. If Netflix greenlights a third outing, one hopes the creative team uncorks a bottle of whatever loosened Rucka’s writing hand back in 2020 and remembers that immortality, for all its anguish, can also be deliriously fun.
he old guard still hits hard, but this time the blows land without much joy. It is an immortal squad in sore need of a new trick, or at least a reminder of the thrill that made them worth rooting for in the first place.
Ed’s Score: 6.5/10
