Review
The Old Guard (Action) (2020)
Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Writers: Greg Rucka (Screenplay/Graphic Novels) Leandro Fernandez (Comic Book Artist)
Stars: Charlize Theron, Matthias Schoenaerts, Chiwetel Ejiofor, KiKi Layne
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An elite mercenary team helmed by Amy (Charlize Theron) are tasked by a new employer to rescue a group of innocent children from a remote desert bunker, after arrival, they encounter an overwhelming force taking them by surprise. The failed assignment leads them to find recruit Nile (KiKi Layne) who joins them to find those responsible as they try to wipe their slate clean and keep their names out of the books.
The Old Guard is based on a series of graphic novels written by Greg Rucka, something I personally have never heard of, like most of these instances it’s still interesting to see this writer’s work come to life through the work of director Gina Prince-Bythewood.
The highly accessible lead-up leading to horrifying failure introduces the story well, taking a supernatural basis and building on top of that with hard-hitting and at points brutal sequences. Early after the opening credits, we see a simple introduction to the different team members in a very superficial way, just about a half-hour in the film, we meet a new character that gets introduced to the pre-established group and grants the viewer a vessel to learn more about the other members in a somewhat lenient fashion the director uses flashbacks to take a deeper dive into the morality of the group.
Charlize Theron’s character takes the fore-front seconded by KiKi Layne. However, another notable addition is Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts) who gets a more pronounced role throughout the duration of the film. Even though the director decided to focus most on these few characters the acting ability shown throughout The Old Guard was tremendous and certainly nothing to complain about, unless however, we’re talking about the Antagonist Merrick (Harry Melling) nothing against the actor himself but his character was extremely one-sided, basically just being immoral merely to have a bad guy to blame, while this did wonders for Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) redeeming him from initial actions taken it’s a degrading turn for an initially great film.
Apart from this egregious character, I’ll have to note that the soundtrack could’ve done with improvement, often overlooked the soundtrack can make or break a film, just look on the soundtracks done by Hans Zimmer on films like The Dark Night Trilogy and Inception directed by Cristopher Nolan.
A perfect example of a few minor hic-ups turning a great movie to be called simply good, The old guard is certainly rememberable, and I’m looking forward to the sequel already hinted at in the open ending, even if I don’t necessarily like the intent for a sequel shown in this way before the movie is even a guaranteed hit.
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Verdict
An Action movie as intended with just a few glaring flaws that one has to be watchful over.
7,9
