The Old Guard 2

Andromache the Scythian was born in the Western Steppes of Central Europe around 4700 BCE. Andy is now a 6700 year old woman, seemingly immortal, and able to cheat death itself. Now, she leads a group of immortal warriors in a never-ending battle to make the world a better place by fighting for the right causes. But when an old ally resurfaces, now in the thrall of a long thought lost immortal, all of their long lives are under threat of coming to an early end….

Six months after the first film, The Old Guard 2 opens as Andy, who is still mortal after losing her immortality, leads Yusuf “Joe” al-Kaysani, who was once a Muslim artist from North Africa, and the love of his long, long life, Nicole “Nicky” di Genoa, who was once a Catholic priest, who first met each other in the Crusades and first died by each other’s hand on the battlefield, and the baby immortal of the group, Nile Freeman, a marine who recently died in Afghanistan, along with the former CIA agent, who is now their mortal fixer, James Copley, to retrieve a dangerous weapons cache from an arms dealer's compound in the city of Split, Croatia.

Oh, the excitment that results.

Later, Nile awakens with a start from a disquieting dream of a woman stabbing a man inside of a library before she steals some of the books. Recognizing the man in Nile’s dream, Andy takes Copley, to go see an immortal named Tuah, who lives in Seoul and maintains a library chronicling the lives and times of every immortal who has walked the Earth. 500 years ago, Tuah had been the one who had rescued Andy after her companion Quỳnh was sealed in an iron maiden and tossed into the ocean. He confirms that some of his books were stolen, and the woman who did it was not only an old companion of his, but she is also the original immortal. An elusive arms dealer, she is currently calling herself Discord, which has got to make her Starbucks trips needlessly complicated.

"I have a soy milk pumpkin spice frappuccino for Debra? Debra? A soy milk pumpkin spice frappuccino? Debra?"

(Loitering by the weird pastry cabinet, Discord snarls and pulls her sword)

Plus, I assume she has papers in this modern day world, a passport at least, right? So what's her last name? It's Uma Thurman, so it'd probably be European-centric, right? Discord Smith. Discord Johnson. Discord Torgelson. Discord Largaespada. Discord Spangler. Discord Schmidt. Discord Hansen, maybe... although, to be fair, that name is technically already taken by yours truly. Maybe she's a bit more smug and elitist about it. Discord Harmony, y'know... just so she can give a dry chuckle whenever someone says it outloud? "Discord Harmony?"

Oh, how droll...

Anyway, at the same time, in the city of Paris, Sebastian “Booker“ Le Livre, a former thief from the late 1800s France, who first died in the service of Napoleon, and betrayed the team in the first film, resulting in his exile from the others, has been ambushed and abducted by Quỳnh. Quynh is feeling kinda pissy, but it's not unreasonable for her to feel this way, after all, she has spent the last five hundred years drowning over and over again at the bottom of the ocean. She was only recently freed by Discord, who she now works for.

Quỳnh contacts Andy via Booker, and the two meet in Rome. It’s a tense reunion, because Quỳnh accuses Andy of abandoning her, which is not completely untrue, even if Andy did give it the ol' college try for a 100 years or so. Either way, the two give each other a bit of the business, which results in Quynh taking back the BFF necklace that she gave Andy hundreds of years ago.

Meanwhile, Nile confronts Discord in a church, who off-loads a bunch of jibber-jabber about how she was the first immortal, and Nile is the last, and she knows this because they have identical birthmarks on their forearms that connect when set next to each other in much the same one of those two halves of a single heart pendants do. But Nile isn't interested in being Discord's Immortal Apocalypse BFF, so they also give each other a bit of the business.

Back at the Old Guard’s beach house, Tuah hears about the scuffles in Rome and then pulls some more Lore jibber-jabber out of his butt, opening an old book and explaining in a “Oh, you don't know about this? That's weird. No big deal...” kind of tone, telling them that the Last Immortal is gifted with the power to take away another immortal’s immortality by injuring them, which is why Andy is no longer immortal, because Nile once stabbed her. But, good news, an immortal who's lost their immortality can regain their immortality if another immortal, who also lost their immortality at the hand of the Last Immortal, transfers their immortality to any host they choose at the last second. They can apprently do this simply by squinting a little bit at the intended person and wishing real hard.

Upon hearing this, Booker, who is looking for a bit of redemption, arranges for Nile, who isn’t aware of her Last Immortal abilities yet, to cut him while they’re sparring. He then transfers his immortality to Andy, but he doesn’t tell her. Most likely because Andy would probably demand it be returned, and she'd make Nile cut her, and then she'd squint at Booker, and he'd be like "damn it!" and then he'd make Nile cut him again, so he could squint at Andy, and the whole thing would just devolve into a Duck Season/Rabbit season debacle.

And that would be silly.

Luckily, The Old Guard then learns that Discord and Quỳnh's mercenaries have taken control of a Chinese-built and owned nuclear facility in South Tangerang, Indonesia. It’s a trap, obviously. Inside, there’s a bunch of boobie traps that will blow up the reactor, so the only way the Old Guard can take Discord and Quynh out, as well as their seemingly endless legion of masked mercenaries, is to go in there and get them. The Old Guard is gonna do it old style.

Unfortunately, everyone is captured almost immediately.

Then Booker sacrifices his life for Andy (who realizes in that moment that she is immortal again, and that he is not) and he does it in a similar situation as those nonsense laser gates in the Phantom Menace, which is just... so dumb. Anyway, Andy is briefly sad at this, but also, there’s a bunch of mercenaries to cut up with her axe, so she gets to chopping. Meanwhile, Nile is not captured, so she confronts Quỳnh inside the reactor core and manages to steal Quynh's immortality, but then she is captured by Discord, because of course she is. Andy finally shows up and she and Quynh decide to be BFFs again.

Then Andy and Discord fight.

It turns out that Discord has lost her immortality too, because the main take-away here is that immortality is as easy to misplace as your glasses. It also turns out that Discord is way more sensible than any of our mopey immortal heroes, as she is desperate to regain her immortality and continue to live forever.

This was the "plan" all along, get Nile and use her to restore Discord's immortality. Why they didn't just kidnap Booker, and then kidnap Nile at the church, instead of this whole reactor nonsense, I don't know. Anyway, Discord ends up beating Andy, because these immortals are honestly shit at fighting, as they pretty much rely on the fact that they can't die, instead of learning an actual skill. In short, I have seen the Deadpool movies, and these immortals are no Deadpools.

In the end, Discord escapes in a helicopter with the captured members of the Old Guard while Andy impotently shakes her fist. And later, Andy nurses Quỳnh back to health inside Tuah's library, and the two vow to find Discord and fuck her up together, all BFF forever and shit.

End Credits.

The Old Guard 2 is not good.

That's too bad, because I liked the first one, but where the first film was dumb, but still fun, this one is just kind of dull and disappointing. It drags throughout most of the middle of the film, and then the final act just sort of plops down in your lap and races for the ending. Also, the Lore is absolute nonsense, just a storm of the usual cliched Chosen One/Fantasy World nonsense that all feels so unnecessary and also extra dumb and overly complex in a broadly simple way. Again, so unnecessary and arbitrary. It's all capped off by a denouement that lacks any urgency, especially given the way that the climax ended. I mean, it must have taken days for Quynh to recover from her stab wounds now that she's mortal, if Discord hasn't regained her immortality by then... what the fuck is she waiting for?

That's not to say that this film doesn't do things as well as the first film. Like the first film, The Old guard 2 often explains whats happening way too much, usually while the thing they’re explaining is actually happening on screen. And also, much like in first film, the fights are ho-hum. The first film presented an idea where the Immortals' reason for existing is that their actions create a positive “ripple effect” on the mortal word, meaning that the people they save usually end up going on to give birth to people who would not have existed if not for the Immortals, and they then eventually somehow make the world better. I really liked that idea, but it’s just too underdeveloped in this film, much like it was in the first film.

This movie very clearly only exists because people enjoyed the last one, and also streamers like Netflix and Amazon apparently have a bottomless well of money for them to make mediocre action films all around the world. There's no heart here. There's nothing to talk about. It's a couple of overblown set pieces, a bit of banter, some new lore, a heroic sacrifice, and a lot of standing around, all to find out that this series is actually a trilogy. The film is all set up and treading water. But on the plus side–and I'm sorry for bringing it up again, I know, but it's all I've got with this film–there was a very brief scene filmed in Trieste.

In the end, I think I like the idea of the Old Guard films more than I like what they're doing with it. If pressed, and there could be only one "Immortals fighting throughout history, the modern day, and on into the future" franchise, I'd choose Highlander, and so should you.