The Old Guard: A Review
/****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SKIP IT. Just an idiotically dreadful piece of movie junk.
The Old Guard, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and written by Greg Rucka (based on his comic book of the same name), tells the story of a group of centuries old “immortals” - warriors who cannot be killed, and their leader Andromache, as they navigate a hostile modern world. The film stars Charlize Theron as Andromache, with supporting turns from Mathias Schoenaerts, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kiki Layne and Harry Melling.
As the coronavirus cinema void continues unabated, Netflix has attempted to meet movie demand with some of its original content…such as the action/sci-fi film The Old Guard.
The Old Guard is not a movie I would ever venture out to see in the theatre even in the best of times, but Netflix now has leverage over me since I’ve not been able to get my cinema fix for over four months now…and so…I succumbed and rolled the dice on The Old Guard.
To be fair, my bet on The Old Guard wasn’t entirely a long shot as Charlize Theron has proven herself to be a formidable action movie protagonist…the glorious Mad Max: Fury Road and the entertaining Atomic Blonde being proof of that. The movie also boasts two actors I have long admired, Matthias Schoenaerts and Chiwetel Ejiofor, among its cast. So while I didn’t have my hopes up, I also wasn’t expecting it to be abominable.
Boy was I wrong.
The Old Guard is an awful movie.
It is also as ineffectively directed as any major motion picture you’ll come across.
Director Gina Prince-Bythewood, whose only claim to fame was the egregiously overrated Love and Basketball (2000), lacks any and all requisite skill or talent to tackle a film of this nature. It is stunning to think that this movie had a $70 million budget and yet at best looks like a flimsy Sci-Fi channel throwaway movie and more often than not looks and feels like amateur hour at the local cable access station.
The action sequences are dull, derivative and repetitive. The visuals are stale and flat. The character development and performances are insipidly vapid. Oh…and the story is utterly imbecilic…just completely nonsensical and idiotic. But beyond that it I guess it was ok.
One mystery I have yet to figure out is why the film has two cinematographers in its credits. Barry Ackroyd and Tami Reiker are both listed in the credits, but having two DP’s is a surefire recipe for disaster. One can’t help but wonder if one of them started the film and was replaced. Ackroyd is a serious guy, having received an Oscar nomination and winning a BAFTA for The Hurt Locker. Reiker is much less accomplished, but the notion that Ackroyd was potentially mentoring her doesn’t hold water as she has been working in the industry for over twenty years. Regardless of why there are two cinematographers, the bottom line is that whoever shot this movie ought to be ashamed of themselves.
As for the directing, you might think that since Prince-Bythewood is not good at action sequences she might at least be good at drawing solid performances from her cast. You’d be wrong.
Make no mistake, Charlize Theron is a terrific actress and a potent action movie presence, but in The Old Guard she not only looks terrible but lacks any dynamism or magnetism at all. I understood what she was trying to do with her character - create a deeply wounded soul battered by the slings and arrows of such an egregiously long life without end, but she is so poorly photographed and directed she ends up being nothing but dour, shallow and unconscionably boring.
Kiki Layne, last seen giving an uneven performance in the equally uneven If Beale Street Could Talk, plays a new member of the Immortals gang and is embarrassingly lackluster and awkward. The wooden Layne is woefully miscast as she is painfully uncomfortable with the action sequences and seems unable to even remotely connect with the dialogue or drama of the less physically demanding scenes.
Both Matthias Shoenaerts and Chiwetel Ejiofor are two enormous talents wasted as their characters are so poorly written as to be incoherent.
And finally, Harry Melling gives a dinner theatre murder-mystery level performance as the bad guy from big pharma. Good Lord, all Melling was missing was a mustache to twist as he laughed maniacally.
What is frustrating to me is that the plot of The Old Guard could potentially be turned into an interesting cinematic venture, but Netflix handed to keys to what they thought might be a new signature franchise to Prince-Bythewood and she (and Reiker/Ackroyd) proceeded to fill the gas tank with maple syrup and paint the interior with raw sewage. The car may still be able to run after this…but it’s gonna need a lot of work before that can ever happen.
In conclusion, The Old Guard isn’t just a missed opportunity, it is a cinema abomination. Only movie masochists need ever glimpse a second of this dreadful film. If you want to see Charlize Theron in all her action movie glory, skip The Old Guard and go watch Mad Max: Fury Road. You’ll be glad you did.
©2020