The Old Guard 2 (dir. Victoria Mahoney)

by Jack Martin | Jul 2, 2025

Certificate: 15

Running Time: 105 mins

UK Distributor: Netflix

UK Release Date: 2 July 2025

WHO’S IN THE OLD GUARD 2?

Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, Matthias Schoenaerts, Vân Veronica Ngô, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Uma Thurman, Henry Golding

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Victoria Mahoney (director), Greg Rucka and Sarah L. Walker (writers), A.J. Dix, David Ellison, Marc Evans, Dan Goldberg, Don Granger, Beth Kono and Charlize Theron (producers), Ruth Barrett and Steffen Thum (composers), Barry Ackroyd (cinematographer), Matthew Schmidt (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

An immortal band of warriors find themselves up against their deadliest adversary yet…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON THE OLD GUARD 2?

While everyone was confined to their homes during the COVID-19 lockdown, Netflix seized the opportunity with a bunch of movies people could enjoy as much in their living rooms as they could in the cinema. One of these movies was The Old Guard, a decent action blockbuster that provided enough hard-knuckle violence and interesting character dynamics to appease stuck-at-home audiences, though one wonders how much it could have grown with even wider audiences had the stubbornly anti-cinema streaming service not picked up the rights.

Five years later, with the pandemic behind us and the seemingly airtight streaming model starting to unravel as more and more people embrace cinemas once again, The Old Guard 2 can’t help but feel like the result of Netflix’s innovative but ultimately flawed business plan. Noticeably less fun than its predecessor, not to mention much lighter in both tone and storytelling, it’s a movie that checks nearly every possible box yet struggles to leave enough of an impression that ensures audiences come back for more. Although in this case, they probably won’t have much of a choice.

Set roughly six months after the events of the first film, we pick up on our band of immortal warriors – led by Andy (Charlize Theron), who had previously been rendered mortal – as they’re doing what they do best under the watch of their former enemy turned ally Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor). The group, which also consists of Joe (Marwan Kenzari), his lover Nicky (Luca Marinelli) and recent addition Nile (KiKi Layne), soon catches wind of a mysterious woman who’s been working with dangerous arms dealers, only to soon discover that she is Discord (Uma Thurman), not just another immortal but perhaps the very first in existence, who now has a devious scheme of her own. More notable, to Andy at least, is the re-emergence of Quỳnh (Vân Veronica Ngô), who’s just been freed from her watery coffin after five centuries and is hell-bent on exacting her vengeance on the humans who buried her. Now, Andy and the team, along with formerly exiled member Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts) and newcomer Tuah (Henry Golding), must try to stop Discord from carrying out her plan – and, in Andy’s case, try not to die for good.

I’ll admit, it’s been since it first debuted that I’ve seen The Old Guard. While it was a film I remember enjoying at the time, it was never something I was keen to revisit, not even before this new one came out. But from what I do remember about the first film, it was a lot more ambitious in just about every department, whereas this feels like a wild step down, less like something you’d see in cinemas and more like a made-for-TV special on the Syfy channel. Director Victoria Mahoney, taking over from Gina Prince-Bythewood, operates on a noticeably lower energy than her predecessor, with action scenes lacking the drive or weight that they need in order to capture the viewer’s attention, despite some decent choreography here and there, and characters who have little to add other than handy exposition or dropping in at just the right moment.

There’s little excitement to the film, as it plods along fairly aimlessly without much of an interest in what’s going on, even in sequences that tonally and aesthetically do not match with one another. Take, for instance, the frankly baffling opening sequence which feel as though it’s come straight out of a Fast & Furious movie (there’s even a high-speed car chase at one point), wherein the heroes trade action movie quips and make grand heroic entrances through glass windows, none of which happens again later on in the remaining film that is much moodier and reasonably grittier in its overall style. It screams of reshoots designed to insert more action into an otherwise action-lite movie, but even if that were the very likely case, this whole opening is so badly executed and even obnoxious in a couple of instances that it almost seems like Mahoney wasn’t invited on set that day, with some other Netflix-approved filmmaker filling in for her to give the streamer what they want. At least when Ballerina practically wore its reshot nature on its sleeve, it had plenty of impressive action to back itself up, whereas The Old Guard 2 doesn’t have enough of it to drudge up the same level of excitement.

For a while, you go about with an odd feeling that very little is happening in this seemingly multi-million costing sequel, until it dawns on you about ninety minutes in that it’s by design. Without spoilers, the film ends on a cliffhanger that an as-yet unconfirmed third movie will conclude, which would be one thing if the film had earned such a thing, but given how there’s very little in this film that is exciting or interesting enough to make you want to see more – other than Charlize Theron, who is still a pretty cool action hero even when she’s given little to work with as she is here – it really hasn’t. You have to actually be invested in the plot and characters for that to work, as it did with The Empire Strikes Back and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse before, and since the ones in The Old Guard 2 are either too bland or too aimless to get behind, you’re left with little reason to check out the next one other than the fact that you’ve seen the others, so you might as well round out the trilogy.

As and when it gets made, I’m sure I’ll watch it and review it as I did the first two, but don’t be too surprised if I come into it remembering very little about what happened immediately before it in The Old Guard 2, a film that is noticeably more mortal than its predecessor.

SO, TO SUM UP…

The Old Guard 2 is a sequel that lacks the fun excitement of the first film, especially as it dabbles in bland and sometimes tonally jarring action that doesn’t make you especially interested in a follow-up, one that it heavily teases with a cliffhanger that doesn’t feel earned for this franchise.