Netflix’s new Charlize Theron starring action flick The Old Guard was released late last week and I gave it a look. This flick has a premise borrowed from Highlander but wants to be a more prestigious and modern style action flick. It forgoes the over-the-top acting, melodrama, and 80s slick grit of that old movie… which both works and doesn’t work for the flick they made.
The Old Guard is about an immortal team of mercenary trouble shooters who work whatever kind of job they think is right. They can’t die but they can be hurt… Theron plays their leader (who is a couple millennia older than the rest of the team) who finds it harder and harder to stay underground in the modern world. Then a US marine gets tapped for immortality and they have to bring her into the fold.
While the reviews of this movie are quite good, I was a little lukewarm about it. It feels to me often like the sagging middle part of an otherwise good series. There’s a lot of big ideas that the movie doesn’t have the time, budget, or interest to tell at this point in the fictional long running series. I kept wanting to see the other parts of this story than the one they were presenting. The story they chose to focus on feels kind of low stake for what is effectively an attempt to launch a new franchise. Yes, there’s sequel setup here and even a possible exit strategy for their big star if Charlize Theron wants to walk away.
As an action film, the movie is clearly trying to go for the modern John Wick style. And they certainly have stars who can handle it as evidenced by Charlize Theron’s turn in Atomic Blonde and Mad Max: Fury Road. So I can only assume the less ambitious, less acrobatic, less strategic approach to the gunplay and fight scenes is more a choice and/or limitation of the stuntmen or choreographer. Hard to say… but it’s not BAD action, but it doesn’t have that gut punch raw synapse movement and impact as a John Wick, an Extraction, or a few others that have taken up this style.
As to the rest of the flick, the acting is certainly good. Theron plays her world-weary centuries old character with terse cynicism and newcomer Kiki Layne does a good job as the newcomer (and audience surrogate). In fact, in the first act, she gave me real hope this movie would have a strong heart. But it ultimately squanders a lot of that tone. Again, like the action, none of this is incompetent though… it’s just not as good as it ought to be.
Despite the negatives, this is still a competent and pretty enjoyable movie that misses out primarily due to its low ambitions, lack of focus on the “good” parts of this centuries old story, and not-quite-good-enough action. But it’s certainly a good try and worth checking out if the concepts appeal to you.
Score: 78