Netflix Movie: The Old Guard (3.5/5)

Author:  Dread Pirate Mikey Date: 2020-07-12 22:58:57+00:00

The Old Guard is a new action movie available on Netflix. The basic plot is similar to the Highlander TV show and movies. Certain people are born as immortals and have Wolverine/Deadpool like powers that allow them to heal from any injury. But rather than fight to the death like Highlander, in this movie, the immortals are good guys who spend their time trying to help people in situations that make sense. Their group is composed of 4 immortals so say conquering a country is not something they would try. Charlize Theron is the lead in the film with some other less well known actors. Chiwetel Ejiofor (the villain from Serenity, this dude is awesome) is in a supporting role.

Spoilers follow, so click on the link to read on.

Let's get the Woke Points out of the Way

If an over abundance of wokeness bugs you, first let me list those as this movie has its share.

  • Main villain is a white male capitalist: Check.
    • And even worse, he runs a Big Pharma company and wants to be even bigger pharma!!!
  • Two of the immortal dudes are a gay couple: Check.
    • And they really, really, really, really love each other.
  • Main character is persecuted for being a woman: Check.
    • There's a whole witch trials side story sort of.
  • No one at a big corporation has any morals: Check
    • Yes. If you work for big pharma. You are totally ok with kidnapping and torturing people for the "greater good" (i.e., bottom line).

I still found the wokeness fairly mild. But thought I should share up front.

Plot Summary

So the movie starts with the group of immortals (TeamI) getting back together after a year off. Andy (Charlize Theron) is the leader and it very very old and is beginning to tire of her immortality. Given she is a Scythian and that culture dates back to 7000BC, one might understand her situation. The teams consists of the 2 dudes (the couple) who are from the time of the Crusades (1100AD) and Booker who is from the War of 1812.

They are offered a job from bad CIA guy (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to rescue a group of 20 school girls kidnapped in Somolia. TeamI arrives at the bad guy compound and kills the crap out of them, these are some seriously experienced fighters. They get to the girls and find out its a trap. Twenty dudes jump out and kill TeamI with AR-15s. While the bad guys are high fiving and fist bumping, TeamI starts to revive, bullets start popping out their body. Anyway, not good for the bad guys, cause you DO NOT want to fight these folks hand to hand. Andy uses this wild rounded two sided axe, wicked. Now TeamI is on the run figuring bad CIA guy wants them for dissection or some other nefarious purpose.

Meanwhile Nile (KiKi Layne) is a marine in Afghanistan on a patrol. She captures a terrorist and in the process has her throat cut and dies, for about 15 minutes. She then pops back up without a scratch! This causes a mental connection with TeamI that makes them dream of each other. So to save Nile of a lifetime of dissection and testing, Andy heads to meet up with her and explain her situation.

So the main part of TeamI heads to Paris to hide out. Andy finds Nile and has a hard time convincing her of her situation, but does after several fights and killings. All this is pretty cool and well written. Finally, Andy and Nile make it to Paris and they meet the team. All the dudes are super nice to Nile.

Andy and Nile go for a walk and the bad guys show up and kidnap the 2 dudes. Booker is badly injured by a grenade but does heal up eventually. More bad pharma guy minions show up, but they are driven off by Andy. She does however find out that her healing factor is degrading. The 2 dudes are taking the bad pharma dudes lair/lab. They are strapped to chair for an eternity of lab tests! (Bwahahahahah!)

Andy, Booker, and Nile hunt down bad CIA guy so they can rescue the 2 dudes. Nile decides she wants to go home and see her family. Andy and Booker get captured by bad pharma dude, now all 4 of them are strapped to chairs. Nile has a change of heart and meets up with bad CIA guy who also has a change of heart and they decide to rescue the rest of the team. This results in the final battle that ends the movie.

Thoughts

This movie is pretty good. Well written with cool action scenes that aren't over done, thankfully. No 10 minute fights or 15 minute chase scenes in this movie. Yay. The villain is of course 2d along with all his corporate minions. If the bad guys were better, my score might have been higher.

Anyway, definitely worth a view. Check out The Old Guard on Netflix.

tags: #movie #netflix #action