In another life and on another website, in a review of the first part of the film The Old Guard, I expressed some complaints about the inconsistency of the film adaptation with the tone and mood of the original comic book and some incomprehensible and unnecessary changes made by the filmmakers... I wish I knew then what The Old Guard 2 would turn into...
| Name | The Old Guard 2 |
| Genre | action, fantasy |
| Director | Victoria Mahoney |
| Cast | Charlize Theron, Kiki Lane, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, Matthias Schoenaerts, Ngo Thanh, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Uma Thurman and others |
| Studios | Skydance Media, Denver and Delilah Productions, Netflix |
| Timing | 1 hour 44 minutes |
| Year | 2025 |
| Link | IMDb |
Let's rewind a little. In February 2017, the graphic novel The Old Guard: Opening Fire by Greg Ruka and Leandro Fernandez began to be published. This is a bloody and sentimental adventure of four (then five) immortal warriors who were born in different periods of human history. Did someone say Highlander (1986)? Yes, but no, the heroes of Ruka do not kill each other, but try to adapt to a world that is changing so quickly and so, they participate in almost all its wars. Skydance Media immediately appreciated the potential of the comic and acquired the rights to the film adaptation even before the release of the last issue.
The film adaptation of The Old Guard was released on Netflix in 2020. The script was written by Greg Ruck himself, so it followed the original almost verbatim, except for some minor changes made to reduce production costs and changing the nationality of one of the heroines. So, at the request of actress Veronica Ngo (Ngo Thanh Van), the Japanese Noriko turned into a Vietnamese Quynh. But there was another very strange and important difference that significantly changed the feeling of the film's ending, and also influenced the script of the sequel.
And the fact that there will be a sequel was already clear from the final shots of The Old Guard, which show the events of the next volume of the graphic novel - The Old Guard: Force Multiplied. It began to be released in 2019, right during the production of the film.
Despite a slight change in tone due to the same strange script decision and miscasting of the main villain, The Old Guard turned out to be a pretty good, albeit a bit cheap, action movie with interesting characters.
They decided not to delay the sequel, especially since the first film "went" to Netflix viewers, the second volume of the comic book was already out, and the actors of the main roles were not against it. So in early 2021, The Old Guard 2 received the "green light" from Netflix. Greg Ruck was again responsible for the script, but instead of the experienced Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basketball, The Secret Life of Bees), Victoria Mahoney sat in the director's chair, whose portfolio includes only one feature film with very mediocre reviews from the media and audiences.
It seems that it was Mahoney's lack of experience and the Hand's scripting decisions in the first film that led to the disaster. To fix the mistake, the Hand began to introduce some strange rules into the plot that were not in the original comic book and some new completely unnecessary characters that literally jumped out of nowhere, with no backstory or foundation.
The beauty of the original comic was precisely in the incomprehensibility of the gift and its duration. No rules, no explanations – immortality appears from nowhere and can disappear at any time. There are few immortals, they all know each other, which is why they experience the loss of each of their friends with difficulty.
Yes, we understand that bringing Uma Thurman into the film and giving her a katana again was too much of a temptation, but… The character of Thurman is simply not needed, he adds nothing to the story at all, in the comic The Old Guard: Force Multiplied, Noriko / Kuin herself coped with the same role much better. Her motivation was understandable, and her anger was justified. In the film The Old Guard 2 Noriko / Kuin was reduced to… it's even hard to say what. To an ex-girlfriend who was dumped and who will hurt old friends just out of petty revenge. It's a shame…
It's just a shame that Neil Freeman's interesting character, the youngest member of the Old Guard, was reduced to some incomprehensible function. Her romantic line was cut, her role in the Old Guard was downplayed, because in the comic she actually takes over the leadership from Andromache, who is tired of life.
Instead, along with Noriko/Quinn, who was mentioned in the first part and who, let's say, "was found", the sequel added an optional character of Uma Thurman, as well as another immortal who is needed only to voice the new rules that appeared seemingly only because of the same wrong decision in the first part.
All this together, plus the director's obvious lack of experience, led to The Old Guard 2, which was completed in 2022, lying on the shelf for two years. In 2024, the film was finished filming and eventually cut into two parts. At the same time, nothing is known about The Old Guard 3, so when you realize somewhere in the middle of the film that this is only half of the whole, a useless filler without an ending, it becomes generally sad.
Add to this not very fancy fight scenes, uninteresting locations, bad dialogues… By and large, there is only one conditionally interesting scene in the entire film, when Andromache walks through Rome through the ages. That's it. It's a disaster not only against the background of the original graphic novel, but even against the background of the rather mediocre first film. A complete fiasco.
So the two positives about The Old Guard 2 are Charlize Theron, who still has a knack for action roles, and the fact that the film might make someone interested in the original comics. We can recommend The Old Guard: Opening Fire (2017) and The Old Guard: Force Multiplied (2019–20). But The Old Guard: Tales Through Time (2020–21) is something to skip, it's a weird potpourri of anthologies from different authors and artists, a collection of memoirs from members of the Old Guard from different eras. There are a few good stories, say two out of twelve, but most of them aren't particularly valuable.
PS The main character of the comics and movies, Andromache of Scythia, is bisexual, and two of the three men in the Old Guard are gays who have been in love with each other for a thousand years (it's actually a very beautiful story). So if you're allergic to LGBT, keep that in mind...