Charlize Theron plays Andy, an immortal who has fought for moral causes over the centuries. Andy leads a band of three other immortals who share the fighting on these missions. When Andy learns there is a new immortal–a female marine named Nile (KiKi Layne)–Andy travels to Afghanistan to “orient” her to the immortal life. The Old Guard is based on Greg Rucka’s graphic novel series. Rucka provides a compelling script for Gina Prince-Bythewood’s first sci-fi action-movie.
Prince-Bythewood allows the characters space to talk to Nile about living for centuries while everyone they love dies. Part of the team is kidnapped by a greedy pharmaceutical CEO and his heartless chief scientist who plan to analyze the immortals’ DNA and discover a way to sell an immortality serum. Andy sets out to rescue her captured teammates while Nile decides to follow a different path.
Plenty of fight scenes, explosions, and mayhem follow. I can’t wait for the sequel! If you’re looking for a Summer action-movie, The Old Guard checks all the boxes. GRADE: B+
You liked it more than I did. I found it entertaining but nothing special. The acting is mostly good. The exception is Kiki Layne who I thought was terrible and totally unbelievable during action scenes. . Another problem was using bland lightweight pop songs during action scenes. I found that jarring. I would give it a C+.
Steve, you’re right about the soundtrack to THE OLD GUARD. Very mediocre music.
We enjoyed it. For me the weak link was Dudley Dursley from the Harry Potter movies as the Evil Pharma Guy. Way too lightweight to be a serious threat. Theron did a good job and they set up a sequel nicely.
Jeff, in an interview with Willie Geist, Charlize Theron hinted that a sequel to THE OLD GUARD is in the works.
This one has a lot of STOP signs for me: summer action move; based on a graphic novel; superheroes; and near certain sequel(s). On the other hand, Charlize Theron makes up for a lot. I’m still thinking about it but Theron will probably pull me in.
Michael, Charlize Theron is the best thing about THE OLD GUARD.
I watched PALM SPRINGs, a riff on Groundhog Day and I pretty much enjoyed it. I do miss being in a theater though. Will we ever get back to that?
We don’t have Hulu. I’d have watched it if only for J. K. Simmons. Not a big fan of Andy Samberg.
Patti, I miss live theater, too. The Shaw Festival is cancelled and the Shea’s Musical season has been “postponed.” But I may have a solution for you. Check my post this upcoming Tuesday.
George, Jackie wants to know what Diane thought of it.
Jeff, I was shocked when Diane decided to watch THE OLD GUARD with me. It’s a far cry from the HALLMARK movies she binges on. But, despite the violence, Diane stayed with the story of a band of immortals who are trying to do Good Things. Diane is also a Charlize Theron fan.
We enjoyed it a lot. Charlize Theron was great, the other immortals were good, and I didn’t even mind the evil pharma guy — portrayed as someone used to getting whatever he wanted but now in over his head and ineffectual.
Jeff, did you find the soundtrack of THE OLD GUARD as objectionable as Steve and I found it?
No. There were a couple times I liked the songs, a couple times I went “huh?”, but mostly I just accepted it. It was an odd decision to do the music that way, but it didn’t bother me..
I only lasted a month with netflix streaming as there was no way to fast forward that I could find.
I’m getting fed up with netflix dvds as they have extremely long wait times (nearly 2 months so far) for many new releases.
Maggie, maybe you need to upgrade your HDTV for Netflix. Our Sony HDTV allows us to fast-forward, pause, rewind, and close-caption all programs on Netflix. HDTVs are on sale now. Or, you might watch Netflix on your computer. I have a big screen Apple iMac that works great for viewing AMAZON PRIME Video, HULU, and Netflix.
Best Buy – $149 for a 32 inch Samsung HDTV.
Jackie
Maggie, I had pretty much the same experience you did with Netflix DVDs. I joined very early, and they were great for years–I got just about everything I wanted. Somewhere around a year and a half ago they went completely to hell. I put up with it for a few months, then quit. If Redbox is active in your area you might try them for DVDs–you can generally get new releases fairly quickly. You lose the convenience of getting them by mail, but at least you get the ones you want.
I struggled with the decision, but finally decided to keep both versions of Netflix. We watch tv series more than we watch movies, so there are a lot of recent-but-older movies we haven’t seen, and we can usually get those from the dvd service. If people saw our dvd queue, they’d be surprised at the number of good movies we haven’t seen yet. But we skip around and watch this or that from the queue, just things we want to see without prioritizing what the “better” movies on the list are.
Let me go check and see what the last six movies we watched from the dvd service are. Zootopia, The LEGO Movie, Grandma, Pain and Glory, Fantastic Beasts 2, Loving Vincent. A typical odd mix. Plus the episodes of Vera that weren’t on BritBox. And two movie/tv hybrids: The Trip, which started as a tv series and was edited into a film; and Endgame (not the Avengers one, the one about the political effort to end apartheid), which I think was shown in theaters but we watched as part of our clean-up of Masterpiece episodes we havent gotten around to. (There are lots of those, too.)
We are haphazard viewers.
Jeff, VERA is on our PBS station Saturday nights.
Jeff, I assume you mean the Steve Coogan/Rob Brydon THE TRIP. We’re big fans of the latter from GAVIN & STACEY. We saw the first two trip series/movies but not (yet) THE TRIP TO SPAIN.
Yes. Did you see the TRISTRAM SHANDY film (aka COCK AND BULL STORY)? That’s where the Coogan/Brydon characters were first developed. After we saw that we watched THE TRIP. The other three are on the list, for eventual viewing.