Written by Greg Rucka And Sarah L. Walker
Directed by Victoria Mahoney
Discord: "For centuries I've watched you fight to protect hunanity while forsaking your own kind. I will destroy you and even you stand for."
Does anyone remember the first movie? Netflix released it fi e years ago and while I immensely enjoy it at the time, I hadn't gone back to revisit since then. In some ways, this sequel felt like it came out of nowhere and with very little fanfare to boot.
Picking up six months from the events of the previous, you've got Immortal crew of Andromache of Scythia (Charlize Theron), couple Yusuf Al-Kaysani (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicolò di Genova (Luca Marinelli) as well as new members Nile Freeman (Kiki Layne) and James Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) indulging in drinking games for team morale.
Since the first movie, Andy's lost her immortality and former team member, Sebastian Le Livre (Matthias Schoenaerts) aka Booker has been exiled. The latter also ended up getting kidnapped by another immortal named Quỳnh (Veronica Ngo) and she wanted revenge.
It turned out that Quỳnh spent quite some time imprisoned underwater and there's the hint of both her and Andy being former lovers. Their reunion didn't get off to the greatest of starts and then there was Discord (Uma Thurman) to contend with.
The real villain of the piece and quite the counter to Andy in how both women truly viewed time. Like Andy, Discord has lost her immortality and she wants it back. If that meant kidnapping Andy's team and manipulating Nile into taking the others immortality to give to her, then that was what Discord was willing to do.
As an antagonist, Discord certainly had potential and I'm all for this current career Renaissance that Uma Thurman's undergoing but she's also a fairly underdeveloped villain with this movie deliberately ending on a cliffhanger. Saying that the scenes she shared with Charlize Theron and Kiki Layne are actually some of the best in the movie.
Getting back to the cliffhanger part of things, I did like that a team up was formed with Andy and Quỳnh. It's even more amusing that neither one was willing to submit to the other but Quỳnh did seem to be on better terms with Andy than she was when they first interacted here.
- There's a decent supporting role for Henry Golding as Hang Tuah.
- Nicky and Joe seemed to be at odds with one another at the start of the movie. Nile is the last immortal and can take others immortality. Discord was the first immortal.
- Quỳnh was trapped in an iron maiden underwater for five hundred years. No wonder she was pissed that Andy didn't find her.
- Chronology: Six months from the first movie. Locations included Paris, Seoul, Rimini, Rome and South Tangerang.
I actually thought for the most part, The Old Guard 2 made for an okay sequel. Saying that, the third act was rushed, the cliffhanger was frustrating and some of the characters weren't as well developed this time around. Will it get a third? If so, let's hope for a satisfying conclusion.
Rating: 6 out of 10
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