The Old Guard: Review by @Kush_Hayes
Netflix, Im begging you guys, put some promotion into your product. The way things are these days, Ill see one of your titles come up on the calendar and I have less than no expectations. How do you have less than nothing of something? You dont advertise it as a free streaming product.
This brings us to the next comic book property you never knew was a property in what is Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernandez’s The Old Guard published by Image comics as recently as 2017. The story centers around four near immortal beings, all born of this planet, all fantastic warriors of their time. I say near immortal because they can die but its never obvious when that time is, nor how it happens, and unlike The Highlander series, severing the subjects head never seems to come up, despite all of them masters of bladed weapons in addition to their modern assault rifles.
These four are a team and work as Mercenaries for hire, led by Charlize Theron whose character may be as old as a couple millennia. Shes tired of the life as one might be if youre dozens of centuries old, thinking shes not bringing any positive change to the world with what theyre doing. Reluctantly she agrees to one more job for her team who have been hired to find a group of children moments away from being sold into slavery. Upon arriving on the job site, it becomes clear they were set up and one of the better entertaining actions scenes Ive seen in this 2020.
As the team decides to go after the CIA agent who set them up, played by Chiwetal Ejiofor, a new player emerges. While on a mission in Afghanistan an unsuspecting marine, Nile, played by Kiki Layne, dies in combat while trying to resuscitate the suspect she just shot. After Nile returns from the dead, her squad, as well as the whole platoon are suspicious of her and how she now has no trace of the wound that killed her once. Moments before Military Police arrest her, she is rescued by Charlize. We get a “can we trust each other?” moment. We get the “meet the team” moment. Questions are answered in riddles and non sequiturs. And then the CIA comes in and interrupts everything, unfortunately for the CIA.
Gina Prince-Bythewood, the director of Love & Basketball and The Secret Life of Bees, has no problem driving this action extravaganza. Lots of fun sets and scenes, with exciting fight choreography. I would be very interested in seeing what else Ms Prince-Blythwood does with the action genre, if not experiment in the scifi world as well.
Charlize Theron continues to bring it in this as she does in everything shes in. And while shes been doing action films longer than Mad Max Fury Road, her game has just been getting stronger as she goes along. You cant keep your eyes off her when shes on screen. She brings an interesting quality to her character and you believe that this woman has lived possibly 2000 years as well as all the baggage a stat like that might weigh one down.
Much like 2018s overlooked If Beale Street Could Talk, youre rooting for Kiki Lanes character. The actress knows how to stir good drama, and when the story calls for it, thats when she shines. You are never annoyed or irritated with her fish out of water character, if anything you wish she had gone against good judgement for a final goodbye, again, highlighting her real strength in the drama department.
Im not familiar with this graphic novel, I havent seen anything else Greg Rucka has written with or without his partner in this project Leandro Fernandez, but the entire 2 hour and 5 min runtime of this feature, I was not bored, distracted, confused or anything I usually have a minor complaint about in these reviews. While its fair to compare this to the Highlander series, between the characters, and the journey of our story, theres lots of fun things to play with in this sandbox. Theres not an ounce of fat in this movie and I enjoyed it from beginning to end.
And I look forward to a potential sequel… maybe in a theater… with people again… Ok those last two may be asking for too much.
Four out of Five Blueberries
Rated R for sequences of graphic violence, and language.
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