‘The Old Guard 2’ soars before taking a nosedive

The movie’s action-heavy opening promises a stark departure, since it discards the often-sanitized finesse of the first movie, in favor of a more visually shaky and more tonally gleeful approach to violence—including severed limbs and broken bones that the trio of immortals magically heal mid-battle. It’s wonderfully over-the-top, as is Andy’s reunion with the vengeful Quỳnh (Van), a character seen only in flashbacks thus far, who’s rescued from her ocean tomb after 500 years of painful drownings and resurrections every few minutes, after having been accused of witchcraft in the middle ages. Now a central antagonist, Quỳnh uses the immortals’ exiled partner Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts) to track down Andy to confront her once best friend (and possible former flame) about why she stopped trying to rescue her, resulting in slick, hand-to-hand combat in the tight confines of an alleyway.

However, there’s also larger plot at play: a secret immortal who’s evaded the history books for millennia, the equally vengeful Discord (Uma Thurman), seeks to destroy humanity itself, and appears to be using Quỳnh as some kind of pawn. The villainess has also been using an ancient librarian, and Andy’s long-time immortal ally Tuah (Henry Golding)—a possible nod to the 15th Century Malaysian warrior Hang Tuah, if not Hang Tuah himself—to gather information on how to defeat the immortals for good. Put together, all the aforementioned details have the potential for high melodrama, filtered through the more naturalistic, cinéma vérité lens of modern espionage action. However, whatever hints of high-octane opera the movie features in its first half quickly dissipate, as it takes on a form too linear and straightforward to allow for excitement or surprise.

From left, Henry Golding, Luca Marinelli, Marwan Kenzari, Charlize Theron, and KiKi Layne in "The Old Guard 2."

Courtesy of Netflix

The protagonists still feature a familiar and often delightful camaraderie—especially warrior couple Joe and Nicky—but moving the plot from point A to B is never particularly complicated. It usually features a quick conversation between the heroes about where their villains are going to be next, and they simply set out for said locations to fight them, as if moving between levels of Tekken or Street Fighter. One of these moments, at the very least, sees Andy reminisce on the way the streets around her have changed over hundreds of years, with scenes from antiquity appearing around her. But from that point on, The Old Guard 2 seems to hop and skip around anything resembling mischief, as it rushes its characters towards a new location for the next big fight.

Where these battle scenes, featuring both guns and ancient weaponry, ought to be inventive, they usually take the form of rote shootouts (with the minor exception of Andy wielding an axe), as the villains’ overly simplistic plot fades into view: they plan to use a bomb, making the heroes race against time the way a James Bond or Jason Bourne might. But beyond the mayhem of the opening scene, the characters’ immortality and healing abilities seldom come into play as elements allowing for a more madcap form of action and carnage. You can do so many ridiculous things with heroes willing to break their bodies to stop the bad guys, and The Old Guard 2 thinks of absolutely none of them.

Veronica Ngô plays Quỳnh in "The Old Guard 2."

Courtesy of Netflix

Instead, it introduces a secondary subplot about losing, regaining, and even transferring immortality, which renders vulnerability itself a mutable element. Which is to say: physical vulnerability can be easily re-written, but this ends up impacting emotional vulnerability too. Circumstances can change at the drop of a hat, so characters like Andy are seldom afforded the time to ruminate (on mortality, consequences, or really, anything else). Even Quỳnh, who has the most twisted backstory imaginable, as a woman who’s lived and died thousands upon thousands of times in utter agony, seems to be fairly well-adjusted when the plot calls for it, negating any interesting character decisions Ngô might’ve brought to the table.

When the movie finally brings its hero and villain into contact—Thurman and Theron; the Bride and Furiosa; a Hollywood action heroine face-off for the ages!—the result is limp and truncated. It turns out they’re saving the real fireworks for a potential third entry, which The Old Guard 2 sets up not via a cliffhanger, but rather, via the movie ending mid-dialogue scene, in one of the most groan-inducing conclusions to an action movie in recent memory. Which is a shame, since it begins with the immense promise of something fun and uniquely sardonic, but it ends up forgettable even before its credits suddenly roll.

"The Old Guard 2" is more spy movie than superhero film, compared to its predecessor.

Courtesy of Netflix