The Old Guard 2 review – Charlize Theron’s delayed Netflix sequel is an incomplete mess | Charlize Theron

Even with our thick-of-Covid desperation for something that felt huge at a time when life felt too small, there was extra to The Previous Guard than the common churned out Netflix mockbuster. Launched within the hell of July 2020, it got here with the requisite containers ticked (huge star, worldwide areas, franchisable setup) however felt nearer to the actual factor than most, proving to be a success for these anticipating escapism, scoring one of many streamer’s largest launches to this point.However like many Netflix movies, its cultural influence was negligible, common for a weekend or three however failing to stay on in any notable method after, consumed with velocity and forgotten at an analogous tempo. A sequel was inevitable but pointless, and whereas one was given a inexperienced gentle in the beginning of 2021 and began manufacturing in 2022, it’s taken one other three years to see the sunshine of day. Not solely does The Previous Guard 2 bear the bruises of such a cursed post-production course of however it’s additionally weakened by such a distance from the primary, forcing us to recollect one thing most of us had resigned to the ether (it’s telling that to advertise the sequel, Netflix has recruited its stars to recap the primary movie).It’s not as if we’re coping with a simple motion flick both, the mythology of The Previous Guard, primarily based on Greg Rucka’s comedian e-book sequence, requires sufficient convoluted exposition for us to drag up the unique’s Wikipedia plot description to know simply what the hell is happening within the follow-up. Ought to one thing meant to be a summer season lark actually really feel like such exhausting work?It’s made largely tolerable by Charlize Theron, an actor and a film star we simply don’t see sufficient of and after we do, it’s very often not what we wish to see her in. Theron, who gave us one of many biggest character research of the 2010s in Jason Reitman’s vastly underrated Younger Grownup, has determined to stay boringly unchallenged as of late, slumming it in flimsy franchise fodder (her final non-genre function was enjoying Megyn Kelly in 2019’s doubtful #MeToo dud Bombshell, though that might be conceivably classed as horror). She returns to play Andy, a as soon as immortal warrior who (and I needed to remind myself of this) was made mortal within the first movie, a hazard that ought to technically add suspenseful stakes to her extravagant combat sequences (however alas). This time round, an outdated comrade returns from centuries of punishment (Ngô Thanh Vân) and companions with a humanity-hating immortal (Uma Thurman) inflicting Andy and her group to take motion.Whereas it ought to, in an period of more and more bloated runtimes, be a boon to have all of it wrapped up in beneath 97 minutes (sans finish credit, far shorter than the 125-minute authentic), The Previous Guard 2 is a panicked rush to wrap issues up, poorly developed and confusingly plotted, a swift and savage franchise-killer. Together with final week’s M3gan 2.0, which bombed on the field workplace after a 2.5 yr hole, it serves as a reminder to studios why velocity and ease are each important for sequels in an consideration economic system the place movies simply don’t have the identical media footprint they as soon as had. Within the time it took to beat this one into form, it looks as if these concerned have additionally forgotten what made the primary one work, the substitute of director Gina Prince-Bythewood with Victoria Mahoney resulting in a substantial drop in motion sequence effectiveness whereas the unique’s reasonably groundbreaking queerness has now been nearly totally excised. The primary movie had a shocking, swooning kiss from immortal lovers performed by Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli, however this time round, their foreheads briefly contact as an alternative. There’s additionally a coy confusion over simply what the connection is between Andy and her one-time associate, who’re homosexual within the comics, however are offered as, ahem, longtime companions right here, the movie appearing as an amusingly abrupt finish to Pleasure month.Theron is an actor who’s tirelessly working even when the script isn’t asking her to, however it is a waste of not solely her but additionally a returning Chiwetel Ejiofor, in addition to Thurman who has moments of slithering enjoyable because the villain however she’s used so sparingly, it’s akin to a cameo function. The final act units her as much as be an even bigger half within the third movie however, slight snag right here, there hasn’t been any official affirmation of The Previous Guard 3, one thing which may shock viewers given the baffling cliffhanger ending. It’s not as if some b-plot threads are left dangling however as an alternative, the whole movie is left shoddily unfinished, a very heinous determination that threatens to show the sequence into the brand new Divergent (a cancelled fourth movie leaves that franchise eternally incomplete). Maybe that is perhaps for the very best.