Action With Soul

When you’ve been trying to get chaotic humanity back on track since before Christ, you’re bound to be a little disillusioned. So it is in ‘The Old Guard’ (2020) – Netflix’s new superhero film in which a band of immortal soldiers have been trying to save the day since before recorded history.

Based on the Greg Rucka comic books of the same name and starring Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli, the film introduces a pleasingly cosmopolitan contingent of kickass fighters whose professional portfolios include death during the Crusades, under Napoleon and during the Salem witch trials.

In the present day, humanity is still at war with itself and wants to be able to wreak all-out capitalist havoc for as long as possible. Enter Big Pharma, which has gotten wind of the Old Guard’s immortal and regenerative abilities and wants to bottle and sell them – with or without the guard’s consent.

Having lived for thousands of years and seen not much change in the nature of humans, the Old Guard is disheartened and vulnerable. Immortality has its perks, but eventually the painful healing from gruesome wounds, watching the people you love die and seeing the world burn over and over and over again gets old.

Though it plays a little ‘Avengers’ with Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Copley clearly a take on Nick Fury, ‘The Old Guard’, directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (‘Love & Basketball’, ‘The Secret Life of Bees’), does plenty to advance the superhero genre.

Centering the women heroes played by Theron and Layne without the seemingly requisite sexualisation, Prince-Bythewood gives us strong, athletic and no-nonsense women who save the day with short and cornrowed hair, in practical outfits and without pandering to the male gaze in girl-on-girl fight scenes.

The effect is exhilarating and the action sequences – interspersed between soulful, character-driving moments – are slick and copious. Theron, who is no stranger to the action movie, is mesmerising, and Layne as a new recruit gives us the kind of fiery, laconic black heroine we loved in Okoye of ‘Black Panther’.

With characters and actors hailing from across the globe and speaking accented English, ‘The Old Guard’ feels refreshingly diverse and is particularly so in its openly gay heroes.

Not the default of flamboyant or over the top, Nicolo and Yusuf (Nicky and Joe) are the LGBT superheroes everyone knew we needed. Having met during the Crusades and spent centuries together, the characters sparkle in their love. A scene in which they shut down a goon’s homophobic quip with tear-jerking testimony about their love through the ages will give you life, reigniting the lump of coal you call a heart.

Not perfect, perhaps running a little too long and literally keeping one of the most intriguing characters in a box, ‘The Old Guard’ seems somewhat hindered by the superhero genre even as it seeks to extend it through fleshed-out heroes, exhausted warriors and a central black star.

Stream this if you like your action movies filled to the brim with it and your immortals decidedly human. ‘The Old Guard’ sets up for a sequel and by the end of it, you’ll probably be in.

‘The Old Guard’ (2020) is now streaming on Netflix.

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