The Old Guard 2
Director: Victoria Mahoney
Writer: Greg Rucka, Sarah L. Walker
Based on: Greg Rucka‘s and Leandro Fernandez’ comic
Sequel to: The Old Guard
Cast: Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Veronica Ngo, Henry Golding, Uma Thurman
Seen on: 5./6.8.2025

Plot:
The Immortals are still doing their work, now, though, with Nile (KiKi Layne) taking over much of the leadership since Andy (Charlize Theron) is actually not immortal anymore, and Copely (Chiwetel Ejiofor) helping as much as he can. When Nile starts having dreams about other Immortals, and Quynh (Veronica Ngo) is freed from prison and starts to look for revenge on Andy, they can’t just go about their business as usual.

I wasn’t very taken with the first Old Guard film, but I have seen worse and I’ll be damned if I won’t watch a female-led comic adaptation. Unfortunately, The Old Guard 2 didn’t spark my love for the film either, rather to the contrary.

I actually rewatched The Old Guard, hoping I had a bad day when I watched it the first time and that I’d see what I was hoping for in a re-watch. I did not. It is still not an absolutely bad film, but it is not particularly good either. With the Old Guard 2, things actually veer more towards actually bad than the first film.

The plot here is disjointed, introducing new concepts left and right without really taking time to think about any of it, not in terms of the revelations‘ impact on the characters, nor of whether it really makes any sense at all. With so many things being thrown at us, it comes at little surprise that the film doesn’t really have time for its characters, losing many of them from sight over longer stretches of the film, and shying away from any real growth.

The action scenes are sometimes pretty good, but I didn’t think you could make a fight between Charlize Theron and Uma Thurman that damn boring as they make it here. It’s disappointing to say the least.

There is an interesting film hiding just below the surface of the movie we got, but it rarely makes an appearance. That film leans more on the emotional journey of the characters, maybe leaving Discord (Uma Thurman) for the next film to get rid of some of the excess plot. In any case, there is too much in the film that we actually got that wants fixing to make it really enjoyable.

Summarizing: a bit of a drag.