“In a genre where everything seems to have already been done, The Old Guard is not revolutionizing anything, but bringing its stone to the building. To see if it will be solid enough to, like its heroes, resist time …”.
This is what we wrote at the time when The Old Guard landed on Netflix, during an unpussy summer in action. Charlize Theron at the helm of an adaptation of comics, despite a halftone result, we still bought readily. Nevertheless, we did not suspect when it was this resistance to time that was going to be a problem.
Because five years separate the first film from The Old Guard 2. An extremely long duration of the productions of this caliber and the constant needs of streaming platforms to supply their catalog. Especially since the feature film was shot in 2022 and that it only recently underwent a phase of reshoots, as if the decision-makers had finally seen the result. In short, apart from Charlize, nobody seemed in a hurry to reveal the beast. What to give a good clue to the final quality of the project?
Le synopsis de The Old Guard 2
Six months have happened since the events of The Old Guard. Now deadly, Andromaque, known as Andy (Charlize Theron), continues his mission to help humanity in the company of Immortals Joe (Marwan Kenzari), Nicky (Luca Marinelli) and Nile (Kiki Layne), seconded by the former CIA Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor).
Except that Quynh (Veronica Ngo), the one who accompanied Andy for millennia before being thrown at the bottom of the water, is released from his prison by Discord (Uma Thurman), the first of the immortals. Together, they intend to punish mortals and their defenders.
The rest of too much?
Recently, we were told about some consequences having greatly improved their original concept, like M3GAN 2.0 or Mr. Wolff 2. It is easy to think that The Old Guard 2 had the weapons to go on this path since we kept Greg Rucka – the author of the comics – in the script in the company of Leandro Fernandez and the newcomer Sarah L. Walker and a renewed main cast to which the appreciated Henry Golding and another superstar in the person of Uma Thurman are added.
Besides, the whole film is appreciable Thanks to a rhythm maintained and always the quality of the first, namely to give pride of place to the characters, both in action and in emotion. As such, we like to see the combat sequences abandoned as much as possible the firearms for well-to-body, well choreographed with invested actors. Needless to say, that in this game, Charlize Theron is always impeccable, in what she brings to history on the physical and emotional level.
Brief, The Old Guard 2 does not deserve it and it will quickly slip into the Netflix top top Without having the impression that he stole his place. So why don’t we show more enthusiasm? Simply because it is not one of those suites that do better than the original, on the contrary, we are even in the decline.
So obviously, we are not going to question the lack of discovery since it is difficult to be surprised by a concept that only logically resumes the basics of the first. No, the problem comes from the fact that The Old Guard 2 Copy the recipe, but with a touch less well on each of these aspects.
The fault returns mainly and unfortunately to the same person: Victoria Mahoney. The director who participated in Star Wars : l’ascension de Skywalker (This may explain that) takes over from Gina Prince-Bythewood and the gap is great. Prince-Bythewood had convinced us by his faculty to treat his action scenes to give them this sensational little side. She was also able to grasp us in her most dramatic slopes as when Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts) accuses the weight of immortality or during a kiss exchanged between Joe and Nicky, then surrounded by superfood guards. So, The Old Guard managed to treat adrenaline and emotion on the same investment plan.
Mahoney is more Fast movement follower of camera and over-cutting for fast, but never stunning action sequences. The characters are always at the center of the story, except that half of them has nothing more to play, eaten by two predominant concerns: the need to make room for new ones and the disabled need to prepare the rest. Because yes, if the first film opened to a cliffhanger, the last twenty minutes of The Old Guard 2 are almost entirely intended to start a third part.
Just if we will be entitled to a final duel between Uma Thurman not knowing what she is doing there and Charlize Theron, in a disgusting CGI decor, for the principle of spinning a saber to the old star of Kill Bill. We do not know why, but we feel that this is all this part that has been reworked in order to feed the desire for franchise. Again.
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The Old Guard was in the high average of films in the Netflix catalog. The Old Guard 2 is average. There was better to do and the third component could do better … if he ends up existing and not in five years. On this point, we remain more than skeptical.
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