‘The Old Guard 2’ movie review: A lazy mishmash with great cast reveals everything wrong with Netflix sequels

Fans of The Old Guard were supposed to be in for a treat with the much-awaited sequel this July. Starring Charlize Theron as Andromache “Andy” of Scythia facing off against the big baddie Uma Thurman as Discord and fellow “immortal” Quỳnh played by Veronica Ngô, the movie had everything going for it on paper, finally hitting our screens five years after the glorious first film.

But then, somewhere down the line, Netflix decided to shoot its own foot with the worst kind of treatment it could do to a sequel—make it into a “bridge episode” for the next film.

Kiki Layne returns as the new “immortal” Nile Freeman, joining Yusuf Al-Kaysani aka Joe (Marwan Kenzari), Nicolò di Genova aka Nicky (Luca Marinelli), and mortal James Copley played by Chiwetel Ejiofor. Matthias Schoenaerts returns as Sebastian Le Livre aka Booker, and joining them is the excellent Henry Golding as Tuah. The returning cast brings with them a sense of warmth, yet the lack of a proper story renders all their performances moot.

When The Old Guard released five years ago, it gave us a brilliant and unique film helmed by Theron in her most badass role yet. What made the movie stand out was not just its new plotline, but also how succinct the delivery was, despite the budget, thanks to director Gina Prince-Bythewood.

Just 30 minutes into The Old Guard 2, the jarring and unemotional scenes make you miss Prince-Bythewood as a creative head, despite the wonderful source material by Greg Rucka. Along with being plagued by production delays, lacking a steady post-production team, and Victoria Mahoney taking over as director, this sequel joins the spectacular list of Netflix sequel disasters—Extraction 2, Red Notice 2, and Enola Holmes 2.

It feels almost as if Netflix want to nuke their original hit IPs with a substandard second edition in a crazed move, hoping for a Matrix: Reloaded magic to happen. Ngô and Theron go at it with a wonderful action sequence, but the much-awaited Theron-Thurman showdown was so tacky, it swished past the screen like a bad dream.

The biggest issue with The Old Guard 2 is that it does not have a standalone plot. It feels like a filler episode between the first and the potential third film. Netflix seems to be taking a page out of Marvel Television with this, as it expects the audience to genuinely care for releases that act only as context builders so that we don’t go in for the next big release saying, “where the heck did this character come from?”—something that a good ten-minute recap montage would do better.

The Old Guard 2 builds so little on its hit predecessor that it fails to wrap up any of its theme or character arcs. In a way, we were glad that the movie ran under 100 minutes—for it had the potential to be a true franchise-killer.

Netflix should take stock of this massive failure and go back to the drawing board. The audience deserves a true sequel to The Old Guard, which this new one is anything but.

Film: The Old Guard 2

Director: Victoria Mahoney

Cast: Charlize Theron, Uma Thurman, KiKi Layne, Veronica Ngô, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Henry Golding, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, Nicolò di Genova, Matthias Schoenaerts

Rating: 1/5 | ★☆☆☆☆

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