I was expecting a pretty normal action movie with Charlize Theron beating people up and to be fair... Charlize Theron does beat a LOT of people up but there's actually more going on here than I expected..
The movie follows Andy, played by Charlize Theron, who leads a small group of people who have been basically impossible to kill for centuries, Basically immortals... They can get shot, stabbed, burned or seriously injured, but somehow their bodies heal themselves and they come back... Sounds like the perfect superpower, right?
Well... not really.. and that's actually what I found interesting about the movie.
These people have been alive for hundreds, sometimes thousands of years, and instead of being excited about living forever, they're mostly just tired and honestly, I understand why..
Imagine watching everyone you love grow old and die while you just keep going.. Imagine living through wars, watching countries disappear, seeing technology completely change the world and knowing that you'll probably still be around when the next generation replaces everyone you knew..
At some point, immortality probably stops feeling like a gift, It starts feeling like punishment and that's where Andy is when we meet her...
She's incredibly skilled, extremely dangerous and basically the leader of the group, but there's this sadness underneath her character... She's been doing this for so long that she's starting to question whether any of it actually matters... Then there's Nile, played by KiKi Layne.
Nile is a young Marine who suddenly discovers that she has the same ability. She basically gets thrown into this strange world without understanding what is happening and Andy becomes responsible for introducing her to the life she's now stuck with... I actually liked their relationship a lot.
Nile is basically the audience... She's confused, scared and asking all the questions we're asking and Andy is this exhausted old warrior who has seen pretty much everything...
Watching them slowly understand each other was one of my favorite parts of the movie...
Then you've got Booker, Joe and Nicky, the other members of the group and I really liked these guys...
Joe and Nicky especially surprised me.. Their relationship is probably one of the sweetest things in the movie, especially considering how violent the rest of the story can be...
These people have lived for centuries together, so there's a genuine sense that they're more than just teammates...They're family and then, of course, there's the villain.
A pharmaceutical businessman discovers the existence of these immortals and decides that their ability to heal themselves could be turned into a product because apparently, even immortality isn't safe from capitalism and that's where the movie becomes more of a traditional action thriller...
The group gets hunted, captured and forced to fight their way through a bunch of people who want to exploit them and honestly, the action is GOOD...
Charlize Theron is ridiculous in this movie..
The woman can fight..
There's a fight on a plane that I really enjoyed, and the close-quarters combat throughout the movie is generally well done. The action isn't just people standing ten feet apart shooting guns...
There are knives, axes, hand-to-hand combat and plenty of messy fights but what I liked most is that the characters actually feel the pain...
They're immortal, but they're not invincible...
They can be shot and stabbed...
They can bleed..
They can scream.
They die temporarily and when they heal, they still remember what happened...
That makes the violence feel different...
You're not just watching superheroes who don't care about getting hit... These people are tired of dying and I think that's what gives the movie its emotional side.
The movie gives us little pieces of their past, but I honestly wanted much more but Still, I enjoyed it...
It has good action, a great cast and underneath everything, a surprisingly emotional story about loneliness, purpose and what it actually means to live forever...
Most movies make immortality look like the ultimate prize but The Old Guard basically asks... What if living forever is actually the thing you would give anything to escape?
That's what made this movie more interesting to me than I expected.
Rating: 80/100
