Recent Viewing: The Old Guard 2

On Friday I sat down with The Old Guard 2, a sequel I hadn't even known was in the works. Although actions movies are far from my bread and butter, I enjoyed the first Old Guard film when it came out. It centered an interesting group of characters with genuine struggles with their immortality, and featured queer actions heroes. Also, Charlize Theron. So when the sequel popped up in my Netflix queue, I was delighted and immediately added it to my list of things to be watched.

Spoilers Below

 

Charlize Theron still stars, and she and Kiki Layne as Nile are the only good parts left of the movie. The Old Guard 2 is nothing but a jerky back and forth of long fight sequences and exposition. Nothing happens in the film except the characters flying around the world, having lore-dumping conversations, and then getting into another fight. The end of the last film teased the return of Quynh, Andy's former companion who's spent the last 500 years drowning and reviving at the bottom of the ocean, but Quynh's role is lost in the shuffle of plots this quite average length (1 hr 45) film is trying to juggle while still including lengthy beat-em-up sequences. It felt like an enormously lost opportunity, as Quynh could have been such a fascinating character, and I was very interested to see more of her and how she was impacted by her ordeal and what her relationship with Andy was then and is now, but she felt more like window dressing. We actually learn nothing about Quynh that we didn't already know at the end of the last film. I haven no problem with the ambiguity the film keeps in Andy and Quynh's relationship, but in a film that centers (sort of) on their reunion, it seems like we should have learned something new about them.

 

We don't learn anything about any of the characters that we didn't know last film, except for Discord's claim that Nile is the last of the immortals who will ever be born. Although the characters are arguably what carried the last film, the sequel is content not to bother with fleshing them out further or showing any character growth or decline. Furthermore, the group dynamic from the last film is almost nonexistent. These characters have very little to say to each other, and virtually nothing of personal consequence. Andy never talks about what it's like to suddenly be mortal after thousands of years; Joe doesn't get to really share why he got back in touch with Booker, nor Nicky express his sense of betrayal about the lie; Nile never discusses how she's feeling or settling in after several months in her new life; outside of one brief sequence of banter over drinks, this feels more like a team of coworkers than the (admittedly, struggling) family we saw in the last film.

 

Plot-wise, there's Quynh's return, there's Discord and whatever her nefarious plans are, and there's lots of new lore about Nile as "the last of the immortals" and what that means for all of them. Any one of these could have been a sufficient plot on its own, and they do not come together gracefully, but rather like a high-speed car wreck where they tear pieces off of each other in a wince-inducing collision. The Old Guard 2 is desperately trying to expand is story, here by dropping in new, previously-unknown immortals (we were led to believe in the first film that Andy's band were the sum of all immortals in the world) and retrofitting them into the same flashback sequences we saw in the earlier film. Now it's Tuah who saved Andy from Quynh's fate; now there's Discord who was there and saw Quynh be dumped in the ocean and decided then to be evil I guess.

 

The movie also clearly doesn't know what to do with Booker, who was exiled by the group at the end of the first film. It brings him back into the fold only to have him immediately pursue suicide, at which he is eventually successful in the most meaningless of sacrifices, which gains the group nothing and actually leaves them in a worse position, as they're now down a man. As the heavy music swelled during Booker's sacrifice, I could only keep thinking of how stupid this was. If he was going to let himself get killed, it could have at least meant something. Well, now Booker's out of the way, so the film can focus on...what? 

 

Thirty minutes out from the end, I was wondering how they were going to wrap up all of these plot threads they'd tossed around, and the answer was simply: they won't. The film ends on a massive cliffhanger, fates of most of its characters unknown, almost nothing still known about Discord, the Big Bad or about Nile, and for the most part handwaves the conflict Andy and Quynh experienced throughout the film, as Quynh tried to process her grief and anger at feeling abandoned to her fate by Andy. It never even explains how Discord was able to find Quynh, considering the ocean drift of five centuries. These aren't some minor threads left hanging to tantalize us for another film: this movie is just straight-up unfinished, like a proctor called "time!" before they were able to finish filming.

 

Finally, personally, I think Quynh should have been a lot more unhinged after 500 years of drowning over and over again, hundreds of times a day. The film could have gone a lot harder selling her as a villain lashing out after unimaginable suffering, and done a lot more with where her psyche might be at after this horrific fate. Sure she's angry at the world for what was done to her, and at Andy for moving on when she decided finding Quynh was impossible, but she could have been so much worse. She seems to move on pretty quick.

 

Incredibly bold of this film to think they'll be getting a third movie after this flop. I could not be less interested in seeing anything else from this franchise.