Against the uncertain backdrop of the early months of the raging COVID pandemic in 2020, Netflix dropped The Old Guard. At a time where any new entertainment was happily gobbled up by people looking to temporarily curb the combination of fear, boredom and anxiety that was spreading perhaps even faster than the novel coronavirus, the ensemble superhero movie led by Charlize Theron that was based on a graphic novel series of the same name felt like a gift that was desperately needed. The film which focuses on a team of immortal warriors (Theron, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli) working as mercenaries who become aware of the existence of a new member of their unkillable kind (KiKi Layne) and shortly after recruiting this U.S. Army solider to their team, end up engaging in a battle with a pharmaceutical executive (Harry Melling) who seeks to use their immortality to further expand his medical treatment empire, was the rare Netflix original to be well-received AND popular on the daily top viewed movie charts. The Old Guard boasted excellent action sequences, had real emotional stakes and did a good job of exploring the various triumphs and burdens that come with being alive for centuries. For me at least, it remains part of the very small group of Netflix-backed blockbusters that I wouldn't hesitate to call great movies (the Extraction movies are the others).
Fast forward to two weeks ago, The Old Guard 2 arrives on Netflix just shy of five years after the release of its predecessor. The film had quite the rocky road to release as it completed principal photography in September 2022, underwent reshoots last October and was the subject of some not exactly flattering public comments about its longer-than-expected production process by star/producer Theron. In a development that isn't shocking considering its production woes but is disheartening nonetheless, The Old Guard 2 kind of stinks.
I'm not trying to be hyperbolic in the slightest when I say this, but I really believe that The Old Guard 2 is the single biggest original-to-sequel regression that we've seen in recent history. This is one of those evil unicorn sequels that either has no understanding of or no interest in expanding upon (or at least replicating) what made the original work. All of the visceral, crisply edited fight scenes from The Old Guard have been replaced by action so horrendously shot, cut and directed that it wouldn't be acceptable in a Stephen Dorff vehicle filmed in Estonia for $400,000 USD in 9 days, let alone a major Hollywood production. The storyline-which involves the titular band of immortals recruiting their kind's historian (Henry Golding) to help them square off with the bloodthirsty first of their kind (Uma Thurman) and Theron's character's vengeful ex-lover (Veronica Ngo) who was freed from a tomb at the bottom of the ocean after 500 years during the original's mid-credit scene- is rushed and makes very little time for the character moments that made its predecessor to so easy to get invested in. Somebody got the bright idea to take a page out of the one of the most obnoxious chapters of the classic Marvel/DC playbook by electing to deliver an ending that only exists to as a teaser for the next movie, which is particularly shitty here as a third installment is far from guaranteed. The fact that the almost the entire original cast and screenwriter/graphic novel co-creator Greg Rucka returned for The Old Guard 2 makes its failures even more baffling. I guess you could try to pin the blame on director Victoria Mahoney-who had the difficult task of taking over for the great Gina Prince-Bythewood, but that feels like a cop out as the bulk of the problems here most likely came from the executive level when they elected to trap the movie in post for a whole 3 years and ordered reshoots that almost certainly didn't improve its quality.
If Netflix does elect to surprise people and make a third installment, I'll be crossing my fingers that they learned their lessons from what went wrong with this one. As shaky as The Old Guard 2 is overall, the problems here are easily correctable, especially since the performances and investment level of the cast make up 0% of the blame pie for what went wrong here. However, if this really is the end, Netflix deserves a lot of shit for fumbling the follow-up so badly. Building franchises is one of their top goals as a company and yet, they failed to rise to the occasion on one of the rare instances that organic franchise potential emerged from a title in their catalog. Normally, I'd say that this could be yet another sign that they're God fucking awful at producing movies outside of the auteur space, but I'm in a fine enough mood right now that I'll just say that this was a missed opportunity to expand upon a promising potential cinematic universe instead.
Grade: C-
No comments:
Post a Comment