Following years of production delays, Netflix and Skydance are finally set to release The Old Guard 2, the highly anticipated sequel to the 2020 adaptation of Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández’s acclaimed Image Comics series. Helmed by director Victoria Mahoney, the sequel reunites the immortal mercenary family for another action-packed, globe-trotting mission. However, the film’s greatest challenge lies not in its new villain, but in its narrative struggles, which are hindered by the attempt to establish a franchise.
Set several years after the events of the first film, The Old Guard 2 finds Andy (Charlize Theron) grappling with her newfound mortality. Alongside Nile (KiKi Layne), Joe (Marwan Kenzari), Nicky (Luca Marinelli), and James Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Andy’s team faces a formidable new threat in Discord, a mysterious figure played by Uma Thurman, who claims to be the world’s first immortal. With knowledge that could upend the very fabric of their eternal existence, Discord seeks to dismantle everything Andy and her comrades have fought for over centuries to safeguard humanity. In a bid to stop her, the team turns to an old ally, Tuah (Henry Golding), hoping his insight into the mythos of their immortality will hold the key to ending Discord’s plan.
Naturally, the film presents itself as a blockbuster showdown between Theron and Thurman—a clash between two of Hollywood’s legendary action heroines that resembles a populare fanfiction come to life. However, their confrontation, while engaging, ultimately feels secondary in terms of both spectacle and emotional weight. The real focal point is the highly anticipated reunion between Andy and Quynh (Veronica Ngô), her once-intimate comrade who spent centuries imprisoned in an iron maiden at the bottom of the sea and now finds herself aligned with Discord. While Andy’s confrontation with Discord brings intensity, it’s her reconciling with Quynh’s deep-seated fury and unresolved emotional damage that sparks the film’s most compelling tension—in the form of a vendetta spanning five centuries.
The Old Guard 2‘s action sequences, ostensibly the franchise’s crowning jewel, are surprisingly lackluster this time around. Despite some inventive staging in its early stages, the film’s momentum quickly fades, giving way to jittery editing and disjointed camera work that detract from the impact of pivotal immortal-versus-immortal battles. The much-anticipated showdown between Theron and Thurman, along with the emotionally charged clash between Nile and Quynh, bears the brunt of this breakdown. Instead of culminating in an operatic spectacle, these battles stumble with continuity lapses and what feels like competing takes that were either left in the editing bay or haphazardly stitched together. The film’s entire final act, rather than delivering catharsis, plays like a placeholder for whatever might come next—an unfinished bridge to a sequel that’s still a concept rather than a promise.
And herein lies The Old Guard 2‘s most significant flaw: it’s overly preoccupied with laying groundwork for a hypothetical third chapter, failing to complete the story it’s currently telling. Instead of delivering a fully realized, emotionally satisfying sequel, the film plays like a feature-length prologue that constantly signals its importance without doing the necessary work to earn it. Subplots, such as the tension between Nicky and Joe or the reintroduction of excommunicated team member Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), function less as meaningful drama and more as artificial padding, highlighting the film’s uneven narrative urgency.
Even the film’s most promising emotional arc, the fraught reunion between Andy and Quynh, simmering with centuries of silence, betrayal, and unresolved longing, hits like a technicality rather than a powerful moment, hobbled by the inflated lore and aggressive sequel baiting that disrupt the film’s pacing. What could’ve been a tight, character-driven sequel instead dissolves into a middling bridge to a trilogy that hasn’t earned its next step, despite the film’s obvious pride in its cliffhanger.
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