The Old Guard: Review

Action films are always a bit hit and miss for me. The highs are exciting, fun, character driven romps but the lows can be painfully boring, clichè and dumb.

Recently, my taste in action film tends to lie in the parody and pastiche categories. These films contain all the fun stuff I love without being weighed down by their own feelings of self importance. I'll take Kingsman over Bond any day, at least Kingsman knows how cheesy it's being and provided me with some characters I actually like.

The Old Guard gets some things brilliantly right and some things... not so much and it's the reverse of the problems I usually have with action films.

For once I liked all the characters. I thought they were all written and performed brilliantly and I would be more than happy to spend a series with them.

The action was well shot, nothing new but well executed and exciting nonetheless.

What I didn't like... was the music, the cinematography, the colours and the lack of gore... Yeah I know! Me, the most gore-phobic person on the planet, wants more blood and guts in this already 15 rated film!

The Old Guard is a supernatural action film following a group of four immortals. They are ancient and the most ancient of all is Andy (Charlize Theron) who never reveals her true age. They do not know why they are immortal but they do know one day their luck could run out as it did for their deceased fifth member who one day just lost his immortality and died on the battlefield. This twist on the the immortality trope is one that I really enjoyed since it added a sense of threat to the film. You didn't know who was going to wake up and who was going to stay dead from scene to scene.

They decide to use their elongated lifespans to do good and travel the globe rescuing people from dangerous situations no ordinary person could survive. That is until they are lured into a trap and from there the hunt begins.

Determined that these beings could be the answer to curing the worlds diseases, a ruthless cosmetic company owner tracks down and kidnaps members of The Old Guard. With two of her men already in the company's clutches it's down to Andy, Booker and their newest member, Army Marine Nile, to rescue them but for the oldest immortal, time may be running out.

There's a lot here which I think is really great. The risk of Andy not surviving and having to grieve the life she's lived for thousands of years is a really interesting concept. Nile's journey from a young Army Marine to The Old Guard's secret weapon was also an interesting character arc.

The plot itself however with the villainous Zuckerberg-like CEO we've seen hundreds of times was really disappointing. Not least because we've seen this exact storyline before in shows like Torchwood where a seemingly immortal character has been kidnapped and tortured for testing in order to "solve disease" but also because the film seemed to come at the plot lackluster. It's like this wasn't really the story the film wanted to tell. There's actually three far more interesting side stories happening in the background of this worn out superhero style snore fest.

One thing that I loved about the film was the characters. If nothing else this film at least created solid legs for a franchise I'd want to watch. While I don't think this is Charlize Theron's best performance I think she did get across the age and the weariness of her character well. You believed she's older and wiser than the others and understood why they were following her. Her best acting comes during her moments of vulnerability where her shotgun wound doesn't heal for the first time and she has to wrestle with her own mortality.

The supporting cast were also really well fleshed out even though they are on screen for less time. It has been much reported that there's a gay couple in the film but what I loved about this dynamic is that they weren't characterised by being a gay couple. Marwan Kenzari as Joe and Luca Marinelli as Nicky get just as much time firing guns and being useful as they do expressing their feelings for each other. Their relationship has a believable and frankly brilliant backstory and while some of their moments might be a little cheesy it will hardly make up for all of the cheesy straight declarations of love we usually get shoved down our throats in this genre. The chemistry between these two was great and made me worry about them more than the other characters since they were the ones that were trapped, and they had more to lose than the other characters.

Booker was also an interesting character who was the most downplayed. I felt like this character had history and his one-to-one moments with Nile were some of my favourite scenes in the film.

Part of me can't help but wonder if the more interesting film could have been in the backstories of these side characters.

The most annoyingly average part of this film was its look. I cannot tell you how annoyed I was looking at the expressive comic book panels and comparing them to the Hollywood style, soft light blandness of the film. There is not an image that stands out to me that I consider to be particularly creative. I wouldn't even have objected to Bond style grittiness but it never pushed far enough in one way or the other and the result turned out forgettable.

Then we have the music...

A well placed song during a fight scene where the moves are choreographed and edited to the beat is awesome. I love moments like that. The whole John Wick and Kingsman franchises have basically been born out of that concept.

BUT...

You have to do it properly and you have to save it for the right moment. The amount of intrusive and unnecessary songs in this film drove me insane and it made the big money-shot choreographed fight scenes seem less special. I do not need song lyrics to tell me how I feel at this moment and in more than one scene it completely ruined any suspense it had built up!

Ok, so why does the lack of gore annoy me? Usually I'm on the less gore campaign because I always think it goes a bit overkill but honestly... it depends where you use the gore and there's moments in this film where it was really needed.

One of the reasons I didn't buy into the villain was because he didn't seem to pose much of a threat. He didn't seem to cause the main characters much pain. They had given a good long speech about how much they feared capture but the villain didn't seem to be doing anything to them except for the occasional needle poke. He talked about putting them through things that would kill them again and again but we never see this which made the threat seem false.

Pushing that 15 rating to show some real cruelty towards these immortal characters, something that could impact them for the rest of their natural lives would have made a lot more impact. I didn't hate the villain, he was just kind of meh.

So is this film worth your time?

I'd argue yes. It has the right kind of elements in the right places even if the villain doesn't quite deliver. There are some great performances and it was interesting enough for me to want to see more. This is definitely a film franchise I can get behind!

For all it's faults it at least has a solid grounding which saves it when it falls. A good action movie with good characters that was entertaining to watch.

8/10