My expectations are never set particularly high for direct to Netflix releases but they’ve done a good job raising that bar over the years. The Old Guard is a prime example of securing A-list talent and putting a reasonable production budget behind these straight-to-streaming movies.
A group of near-immortals intervenes in global affairs they deem worthy as they remain in the shadows of history. Political assassinations, loads of bullets, fast-paced action, countless dead bodies, and a group of ancient superhumans at the center of it all. Genre-wise, this is a darker, more adult, story than the average comic book adaptation that gets made and it stays pretty close to the source material.
Greg Rucka wrote the original comic and the screenplay so the artistic integrity of the source material remains intact but the necessity for exposition in the film felt out of place at times. Obviously, the audience wants to understand the why and/or how of these super-beings but the character of Nile (KiKi Layne) seems to exist only to provide a platform for that explanation. And even then, you don’t truly get to the origin of it all.
Charlize Theron lent her particular brand of A-list gravitas as Andromache of Scythia (Andy) but she’s flanked in nearly every direction with solid performances from Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, and Chiwetel Ejiofor. KiKi Layne (“If Beale Street Could Talk”) isn’t quite on the level of the rest and is burdened with a substantial role that highlights that inequity. However, establishing dialogue for her character is rushed. It doesn’t do her or the film any favors but she gradually gets better as the film goes on.
The primary antagonist, Merrick, is far too cartoonish for my liking and strikes a tonal mismatch. Harry Melling wasn’t an intimidating presence on screen in the slightest so it didn’t track when a bunch of people start laying down their lives to protect him. I get that they’re hired guns, but there’s never anything to make their fealty to him believable. Credit is due for going a different route than evil corporate figures we’ve seen in other films but it just didn’t work for me personally.
Director Gina Prince-Bythewood executed this story with notable aggression, that’s not a knock against it either. Some of the flashback scenes look out of place in comparison to the rest of the film but the overall tone is pretty consistent and the fight choreography is top-notch. Fight coordinators Daniel Hernandez and Johnny Gao went for brutal efficiency over flashy stylistic choices and it worked out well. In that way, it’s similar to Netflix’s other recent action-movie Extraction.
I could see some franchise-building here for the streaming giant. The film is open-ended and the sequel series of comics, The Old Guard: Force Multiplied, just completed its five-issue run and digs deeper into the history of these characters and expands on some of the elements put forward in the movie.
Recommendation: It’s not for everybody but it’s a good niche comic adaptation that will have a big-enough audience to continue.