Immortals fighting mortals to the death isn’t fair. I’ve said as much before about Wolverine, but at least Wolverine’s opponents also have super powers. Today’s film demonstrates the Sarah Connor/Terminator effect in which no matter what you do to The Terminator, the thing doesn’t die and keeps trying to kill you. Just because we’re rooting for the immortal this time around doesn’t make it right.
The Old Guard consists of four immortal warriors out to right the world’s wrongs with uzis and broadswords. Their leader, Andy –yes, “Andy,” she’s thousands of years old and Andy is short for the goddess Andromeda or Androcles the lioness or some shit – prefers a lightweight battle ax. Andy (Charlize Theron) has a treasure trove of ancient weapons and priceless art that she keeps in a remote cave with her spare shirts. Her team of Wolverines includes Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), Joe (Marwan Kenzari), and Nicky (Luca Marinelli). They survive an early film slaughter trap with a zombie-turned-bloodbath scenario. I suppose we’re rooting for the fellas who were deliberately ambushed, but at the end of the day, a combat to the death between an immortal and a mortal is always going to end in victory by the guy who can’t die, which is problematic.
There are two things going on in this film: one is a Big Pharma plot by entrepreneur Dudley Dursley (Harry Melling) to capture the Grey Team healing power and second, a new addition to team immortal, Nile (KiKI Layne). There’s something supernatural about the addition of Nile to the group; before meeting, the Geritol Squad all dream about meeting one another, presumably and literally, to exchange war stories. Nile handles immortality about the way one would expect … except for the part where she isn’t happy about it. Hey, babe, live forever young, strong, and beautiful, with minimal consequences; this is why people want to be vampires – and those dudes go through a lot more crap than the occasional medium rare stake.
I don’t call this a great film; it’s not. There’s a decent sci-fi premise and the makings of a good film here, maybe. In an effort to please the big names on the marquee, The Old Guard gave character wrinkles to Theron, Schoenaerts, and go-between Chiwetel Ejiofor, yet for all of the acting as none of their truths ring true. Hence, this film becomes a great deal about bloody fights between mortals and immortals, which
–as I’ve pointed out already- aren’t fair fights. I liked Andy “teaching” Nile how to be immortal, but I got pretty bored with the rest of the film.
Movies like this piss me off, and I’ll tell you why: here you’ve presented/imagined a group of immortals who use force to correct the political wrongs of the world … well, where the f*** were you guys in 2016, huh? If you’re old enough to remember both the Roman Empire and Nazi Germany, you certainly could read the signs happening here and now with the most powerful nation in the world. Trump won an unlikely victory by a razor-thin margin, one that could easily have been adjusted. I’m not saying The Old Guard could do much about the red supreme court or Republican propaganda TV [read: Fox News] or the grotesque Republican advantage of the electoral college, but I guarantee these guys could have 1) stopped James Comey from going public on October 30, 2) infiltrated and thwarted the team of Russian operatives creating and spreading false information on social media or 3) gotten rust belt independents to realize: “maybe the guy who gleefully mocks handicapped people in public doesn’t have our best interests at heart.” Any one of those three things happens and NO PRESIDENT TRUMP.
Perhaps this is my own bit of American Exceptionalism, but I can think of no two modern events more damaging to the country -and the world in general- than the narrow-and-easily-shifted elections of W in 2000 and Trump in 2016. Where was The Old Group when they were actually needed? What’s the point of adjusting the world’s mistakes to bring balance if you’re not actually going to bother with the real ones?
You’ve been around to serve Caesar and Napoleon
You fought evil from rebs to Khmer Cambodian
Immortality?
Meh, to impress me
Try living forever as a custodian
Rated R, 125 Minutes
Director: Gina Prince-Bythewood
Writer: Greg Rucka
Genre: A study of immortality?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Immortal vigilantes, I suppose
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Big Pharma
