The Old Guard - review

Back in the halcyon days of 2014 Charlize Theron had the world at her feet. Oscar success was already in the bag and she had proven capable of leading comedies, blockbusters, indie dramas and everything in-between. What would she choose to do given that she had the power to choose nearly anything? Well…become the world’s leading action star of course; hands up who saw that coming?   

Between Mad Max: Fury Road, Atomic Blonde and The Fate of the Furious Theron is now the most convincing onscreen western ass kicker this side of Keanu Reeves, and she’s back again this week with the Netflix produced The Old Guard, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood of Love and Basketball fame.     

She plays Andy, the leader of a group of mercenaries who are all basically Wolverine without the claws, meaning they’re indestructible killing machines who sometimes get a bit mopey because they’ve been around so long, the blessing of immortality also being a curse etcetera-etcetera. Kiki Layne, who most will know from the excellent If Beal St Could Talk, is the newest member of the bootleg superhero team, who have to fend off Harry Melling’s evil scientist determined to find the key to everlasting life and make bank off it.

It’s a pretty good premise, the era-spanning nature of Andy and her crew allows the film to mix up the usual slick gunplay with a bit of medieval hacking and slashing, and watching Theron wield a battle-axe against an entire SWAT team is as much of a riot as it sounds. The combat is where the film really hits a groove, but it does feel a little boxed in, offering only brief glimpses of Andy’s historical adventures that look fun enough to support an entire Old Guard expanded universe. 

Story wise things are a little less smooth. The script, by Greg Rucka, often feels the need to over explain itself, leading to some distractingly clunky exposition. It very much feels like the details were glossed over while the focus was on pitching the premise of “what if Logan, but there’s five of him?” It doesn’t sink the film, which is far too goofy to be undone by a bit of stiff dialogue, but there’s a lot of backstory about 40 minutes in that repeat Netflix viewers are likely to skip strait past.       

It’s a shame that The Old Guard didn’t come out during a less crowded release period, instead of showing up alongside a lot of other, more interesting films. Still while this may not be as good as Fist Cow, it does make a nice bit of counter-programming.  


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