THE OLD GUARD (2020) **

Charlize Theron, sporting short black hair, dark sunglasses, and looking HAWT, leads a team of immortal soldiers who have been fighting together throughout the millennium righting wrongs and killing bad guys.  Chiwetel Ejiofor hires them for their next assignment, a rescue mission in South Sudan, but it’s all a trick to flush them out into the open.  He’s working for some Big Pharma asshole (How do we know he’s a Big Pharma asshole?  Because he says, “Big Pharma” about a dozen times, that’s why.), played by Harry Melling who is looking to create his own super-soldier drug.  He kidnaps two of their team members, and while he’s busy experimenting on them, Charlize is recruiting a new immortal soldier (KiKi Layne) to help rescue them. 

The Old Guard is based on a comic book I never heard of, so this might be the closest thing we get to a Marvel movie this year.  Like most Netflix original films, it’s about twenty or thirty minutes longer than it really needed to be.  While some of the character interactions are appreciated and help give them a real lived-in quality, many of the flashbacks and world-building aspects fall flat.  I can’t help but think that this wouldn’t have crackled with some tighter editing.

I commend director Gina Prince-Blythewood’s attempt to make The Old Guard more of a socially conscious actioner.  The casting is diverse, and two of the male team members are lovers.  Those touches help to at least make it memorable. 

Too bad most of the action bits are generic.  I mean, I don’t know how you could screw up Charlize Theron slicing up dudes with a battle axe, but somehow even these scenes feel like something from a ‘90s Action Pack show.  The only action moment that works is when Theron is giving the new recruit a fighting tutorial in a plane that’s about to crash.  As far as black-haired Charlize Theron actioners go, it’s not a patch on Aeon Flux. 

I like the IDEA of the movie.  I mean, it’s basically Highlander Meets Navy SEALS with touches of Wolverine tossed in there.  (The characters drink a lot and have the ability to push bullets out of their skulls after they’ve been shot in the head.)  It just never really finds its footing.  Despite some of the new school touches, the uninspired action in The Old Guard ultimately makes it feel like an old hat.