The Old Guard 2
Charlize Theron and the other Eternals are back for a disappointingly mundane sequel.
An axe to grind: Charlize Theron
Photo by Eli Joshua Ade, Courtesy of Netflix.
The Old Guard was always going to be a hard act to follow. The first instalment in a new franchise based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández, Gina Prince-Bythewood’s 2020 film was smart, funny and moving, and the scenes of combat exceptionally well executed and gripping. Prince-Bythewood, who went on to helm the award-laden The Woman King (and who snared a Bafta nomination for best director), exhibited a firm grip of her material, making the more profound notes sing. The sequel, also co-produced by its star Charlize Theron, is everything the first film wasn’t. It starts on a dark and stormy night when a coffin is winched from the depths of the ocean, opened to reveal a screaming face like the female protagonist of Samuel Beckett’s Not I.
We then cut to the title, followed by an imminent raid on a Croatian mansion acting as a storehouse for a stack of munitions and priceless art. Inevitably, as in these sorts of movies, it’s guarded by an army of sacrificial gunmen. Of the trespassers, Charlize Theron is the most notable, firing off instructions to her comrades-in-arms. “All right, Joe, Nicky – you guys take the hedge maze. Don’t worry, it’s not going to be like 1853.” Of course, Theron’s Andromache is over 6,000-years-old, although she lost her immortality in the last film. Now, she just has her phenomenal fighting skills to protect herself – and to save humanity – which is why we get so many fight scenes. There’s a lot of combat and shooting in the opening sequence, carrying with it an air of the humdrum, like so many financially-inflated Netflix action-thrillers. In addition, the locations are all over the place, failing to compensate for some amazingly dumb dialogue.
This chapter of the franchise turns out to be half a movie, jumping on the coattails of Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, and it only really gets going just minutes before the end credits. There are new characters on board, and Henry Golding’s handsome, ruminative immortal Tuah is landed with some of the more indigestible dialogue. At one point, wary of Uma Thurman’s sword-wielding Immortal called ‘Discord’, he admits, “it’s been millennia since I’ve been afraid.”
Unfortunately, the director Victoria Mahoney has squeezed out any sense of fun that the series had to offer and has gone for the generic thrill. Which means that she has relied way too hard on the sound effects department and, just as another fight is about to erupt, calls in yet another orchestra. It’s all terribly routine and dreary, while even the state of Immortality itself is diluted by a new technique of transferring the gift from one character to another, like a swift-acting dose of Covid.
It’s also a story of revenge as poor old Quỳnh (Vân Veronica Ngô), who’s been incarcerated in that watery coffin for 500 years, is more than a little disgruntled and wants some payback. The new film does reach for profundity, when Matthias Schoenaerts’s Immortal muses, “when you get to do things over and over again forever, with no expiration date, that’s where you forget to say things to one another.” Quite. For scholars of the repercussions of longevity, might I suggest they turn to George Bernard Shaw’s immortal play on the subject, Back to Methuselah. It was a lot funnier.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, Vân Veronica Ngô, Henry Golding, Uma Thurman, Chiwetel Ejiofor.
Dir Victoria Mahoney, Pro David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Charlize Theron, Beth Kono, AJ Dix and Marc Evans, Screenplay Greg Rucka and Sarah L. Walker, Ph Barry Ackroyd, Pro Des Paki Meduri, Ed Matthew Schmidt, Music Steffen Thum and Ruth Barrett, Costumes Mary E. Vogt, Sound Erik Aadahl, Samson Neslund and Ethan Van der Ryn, Dialect coach Elyse Dinh-McCrillis.
Skydance Media/Denver and Delilah Productions/Marc Evans Productions-Netflix.
106 mins. USA. 2025. UK and US Rel: 2 July 2025. Cert. 15.
