The Old Guard 2
                                                                                         
Director: Victoria Mahoney
Year: 2025
Rating: 5.5
Back when this was released on Netflix it got scorched like an oil well on fire. Enough so, that it put me off from watching it even though I had enjoyed the first one. But I let adequate time pass to allow me to watch it without prejudice. It took five years to bring the sequel to streaming, but amazingly all the same actors return. The first one had ended on a cliffhanger of sorts that demanded a sequel, but then so does this one. Hopefully, not in five years. And perhaps never. The actors are not getting younger. And neither am I. No, it isn't as good as the first one, but what sequels are (ok, a few). The whole Immortal thing felt cool and fresh that first time even if it was a riff off of Highlander. This one doesn't have that same sense of discovery and surprise and it plays out much more like any action film. Immortality is essential to the plot, but at the same time it isn't.




If you recall (and honestly I hadn't remembered much of anything), Andy (Charlize Theron) had lost her immortality, Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts) had betrayed the Immortals and been exiled, the newly discovered Immortal (Kiki Layne) had joined the group and Andy's lover Quynh (Ngô Thanh Vân) who had been put in an iron casket and dumped into the ocean 500 years previously has been recovered and she is alive though very pissed. 500 years at the bottom of the ocean can do that.



And it picks up from there. With too much plot and time given to interrelationships and not enough good action as another Immortal (the great Uma Thurman) has plans to destroy them and other nefarious designs. And the still pissed off Quynh has joined her. No happy reunion between old lovers. So yes, it is a little flabby and pedestrian but it was fine for what it is. Streaming time killer. And having Veronica Ngo in a couple action scenes and Uma too is a bonus for me.