About 80 minutes into “The Old Guard 2,” I found myself wondering how the filmmakers were going to wrap things up. There were a lot of threads dangling with Charlize Theron’s gang of immortal warriors, split up and facing extinction, and she still had yet to face off with the new villain, Discord (apparently the first immortal), played by Uma Thurman.
The promise of a showdown between The Bride and Furiosa may not justify the existence of this sequel, now streaming on Netflix, but it was something to look forward to nonetheless. And while they do fight, for a little, something even crazier happens not too long after: The movie ends or, rather, stops mid-climax. An ending was never part of the plan.
This might be an attempt at a cheeky nod to the life of an immortal — what is an ending after all, I guess? But unlike the first film, which merely left the door open for the possibility of a sequel, “The Old Guard 2” cuts off mid-movie. Not only is there no option to “continue watching,” there’s no promise we’ll even get an “Old Guard 3.”
Moviegoers endure a lot of partial stories in these days of franchise filmmaking, ever desperate for a built-in audience. With some, you know a resolution is coming at a later date, as with “Mission: Impossible” or “Wicked.” With others, like “Dune,” a part two or three might have been a question mark, but the intention was unambiguously there. There’s nothing fun or enjoyable about being surprised that you’ve been watching a “part one” the whole time, especially on a service that has helped train us to click next episode.
Perhaps that also has to do with the quality of “The Old Guard 2,” which feels like a step down from the first movie, which provided much-needed escapism in the summer of 2020 as we met Theron’s Andromache the Scythian (Andy, for short) and welcomed KiKi Layne’s new immortal Nile.
It ended with Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts) being exiled for a betrayal and the tease that Andy’s old companion Quynh (Vân Veronica Ngô), was still alive. Quynh is, understandably, not thrilled that she was left at the bottom of the ocean for centuries. She wants to punish Andy the most — the movie heavily implies that they were more than sisters in arms, but never quite goes so far as to confirm that their love was romantic, which is especially strange given that it doesn’t shy away from letting Nicky (Luca Marinelli) and Joe (Marwan Kenzari) be an out gay couple.
One of the most significant behind-the-scenes changes is that Gina Prince-Bythewood ( “The Woman King,” “Love & Basketball”) ceded directing duties to Victoria Mahoney, who has directed episodes of “Queen Sugar” and “You” and served as second unit director on “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker.” Working off Greg Rucka and Sarah L. Walker’s screenplay, the movies opens with a lively action sequence in which the immortals attempt to nab an arms dealer. Nicky and Joe are the distractors, getting their own James Bond-esque car chase, while Nile, Andy and Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) get more hand-to-hand combat on the property. It sets a fun tone and allows for some (mostly) welcome exposition — “remember, you’re not immortal anymore” — for those who might not have the best memory of something they watched at the height of the pandemic.
But the film never recaptures that energy again and devolves into an increasingly tedious meditation on time, death and the science of why Andy lost her immortality power (which is approaching “Face/Off” levels of insanity). Thurman has a mighty good scowl as the “bad immortal” who long ago decided she didn’t have any desire to help the humans who persecuted her kind, but the movie seems to be saving her big moment for later.
Overall “The Old Guard 2” is fine, a bit of a background movie that’s probably easy enough to tune in and out of (though Schoenaerts, a standout, gives it some real pathos). Its greatest sin is the non-ending, which might have moviegoers engaging in their own rants about wasted time. Cliffhangers are a gamble — when the movie is satisfying on its own, it can leave them wanting more. In this case, it might just leave them angry. Audiences in 2025 deserve better.
“The Old Guard 2,” a Netflix release now streaming, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “sequences of graphic violence and some language.” Running time: 105 minutes. Two stars out of four.
