The Old Guard Review

July 13, 2020 at 7:03pm
By Jason Stettner

The Old Guard is a Netflix Original film that follows a group of immortal mercenaries that are dealing with the sudden appearance of a new member alongside the discovery of their abilities by an evil corporation. This movie is generally action driven while also diving into the lore behind their apparent abilities to continuously live for extended periods of time. It’s a bit clunky in how it gives context to this lore, while also being generally a very predictable and or generic sort of action experience.

I felt as though I had watched portions of this prior, but with that it does nail the action elements. The combative scenes were swift, visceral and filled with the surprise usage of never being able to die. It lightly deals with the concept of living a very long time, and then seeing a sense of mortality as well along the way. Some of the more emotionally driven segments came across as cliché to a degree, as did the reasoning behind the villains.

There certainly could have been more development on that part as it really did come down into a very generic type of conclusive point. I wouldn’t say there will be any surprises, but I liked the concept behind this one. It certainly has some potential for further expansion as this lore could be played around with in numerous ways. There’s also a very suggestive teaser that sort of leans into this idea should it perform well on the service.

There’s actually a fairly decent cast here that’s led by Andy (Charlize Theron). She’s the oldest of the bunch and essentially the group’s leader. She doesn’t mess around and has some excellent combative scenes. These include moments within an old church area, onboard a plane and when she went to axe some men questions. The latter of that being an intended joke of course, but a rather thrilling part of the fighting sequences.

The rest of the squad was interesting, yet not too well developed. I did find Nile (KiKi Layne) to have some good battles as well, though the character did come across as a bit generic for this type of film. The whole new member dealing with things, that has to make a certain decision. Something that’s very much been done before. Still, she brought some intense hits and a few laughs too I suppose.

I thought the film was generally well presented, some well shot fight scenes. Things were very tight though for the most part, it would have been nice to get some pulled back cinematic moments considering the widespread locations that were visited. They noted such lovely locations, and just didn’t take advantage of those vistas sadly.

The Conclusion

The Old Guard is alright, it has some clunky narrative points though some generally enjoyable action sequences. I liked the concept behind these immortal beings, I just thought the presentation for it could have been better. It felt awkward whenever they were trying to explain, or well show the past. I also felt this was a tad long, and the pacing could have been a bit better.

The slow moments feel intensely sluggish. For the most part this is a fine action film, it doesn’t necessarily do anything new though it does have some cool fights throughout. Come in with aspirations of it being alright and you’ll be satisfied by what this provides. I’m unlikely to watch it again, though some might find this as being some fine background noise.

Again, the fight sequences were exciting enough and it had a solid cast. I didn’t think the characters were anything too unique, and moments throughout this came across as generic. That was particularly an aspect of the narrative, with the ending prior to the teaser feeling a tad cheesy quite honestly.

The Old Guard Review at Home with Streamed Viewing
Content Access was Provided by Netflix

Rating Overall: 5.5