The Comic Book Adaptation Hits Netflix
The Old Guard (2020) is the comic book adaption that tells the story of five mercenaries who hold a secret power that they cannot die until one day they accidentally expose themselves and they have to go on the run from a secret organisation.
Written By Greg Rucka and Directed By Gina Prince-Bythewood, Netflix once again proves that they still haven’t quite grasped how to do an action movie due to a lacking script and haven't quite perfected character development just yet.
The Film....
The Old Guard (2020) is Netflix’s newest action adventure is one of those movies that is perfect for Sunday viewing if you don't really want to focus too much on its story and do other things like scroll through social media and still understand what is going on. The film is just meh, it doesn’t really add anything amazing to Netflix’s Originals and yet isn’t completely awful?.
The story is based on the comic book which I admittedly didn’t know it was until I saw online, so obviously I haven’t read the comic to get a full understanding and appreciation for what the movie could have offered us. That being said, I still thought it was okay, nothing groundbreaking, but sustainable to watch. The movie is focused more so around Andy, a warrior who despite looking young, has been alive for centuries and has a mysterious ability that prevents her from dying. She finds out there are three others just like her and together they must prevent showing the world this ability they have until a mission goes wrong and they expose themselves to a secret organisation and now must fight to prevent themselves from being tortured and for there ability to be monetised. Whilst on the run they have dreams that there is another one if their kind and must save her and must show her what her new life is going to be.
The story flowed okay, it had moments were it went a little stale with some boring and unengaging dialogue between its diverse characters which on the whole were well thought out but again could have done with some more development and it also has some questionable action sequences which any SAS or Navy Seal would be up in arms over. As I just stated the characters are quite diverse, having two gay characters that were an absolute joy to see every time they came on screen and being immortal lovers will probably the most romantic thing I'll see all year from a movie to be honest. The only problem I have with the characters on a whole is they just don't seem very humanised and they don't really make me feel for them at all, when they get hurt/shot you know they'll come back to life and be okay, I didn't once say "Oh I really hope they don't kill this character off" because truth be told I didn't really care for the characters, which is something they need to work on for the future if they ever make a sequel. The only sort of character development I saw was from Nile, the newcomer to the group, as she deals with being thrown into this new life. Another thing I’d suggest for a future film is make her and Andy lovers as they hinted at it quite a lot during the entirety of the movie but did nothing with it which was a real shame.
On a more positive note, the movie does have some really impressive and clean executed action sequences, the last time we got choegraphy as clean as this was Netflix's last action flick, Execution (2020), and is probaly one of the more enjoyable aspects of the film on a whole. CharliseTheron really used her training from Atomic Blonde and put it back into action in this comic book adaptation and kills it, quite literally.
The Cast...
Leading our death defying group is Andy, played by Charlize Theron (Atomic Blonde, Mad Max: Fury Road). We have Booker who has been by Andy’s side the longest and playing him is Matthias Schoenaert (The Danish Girl, Red Sparrow) and playing our loveable gay couple Joe and Nicky are Marwan Kenzari (Aladdin, The Mummy) and Luca Marinelli (The Great Beauty, Martian Eden). Finally our newcomer to the group, Nile Freeman, is played by Kiki Layne (If Beale Street Could Talk, Captive State).
I think for me personally and for as brilliant Charlize Theron was and brought the experience from Atomic Blonde to play yet another badass woman assassin, I really loved Kiki Layne‘s performance and character. Yeah her character has some flaws and needs work on but she did the best with what she had and I feel her character was probably the only one who had some sort of character development. Starting out as a marine and then being thrown into this new life and having to overcome the feelings that come with it was probably the only type of development I seen throughout the movie. I really want to see more of her as I know she’s a talented actress from Barry Jenkins If Beale Street Could Talk (2018).
To Conclude....
The Old Guard (2020) is the perfect action flick for a Sunday viewing with some impressive action sequences and a diverse cast but severally lacks a decent script and needs work on its character development which I hope gets sorted for a future sequel.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️.5/5
The Old Guard (2020) is now streaming on Netflix worldwide.