Review: Charlize Theron shines as a world-weary immortal in The Old Guard
Andy (Charlize Theron) and her right-hand man Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), aka Sebastian le Livre. [credit: Netflix ]
Four immortal warriors who have secretly protected humanity for centuries become targeted by a corporate CEO keen on extracting and marketing the key to their mysterious powers-just as a new immortal emerges to join their ranks-in The Old Guard. It's the latest action thriller from Netflix, starring Charlize Theron, and very much in the same vein as the Chris Hemsworth vehicle Extraction, which the streaming platform r earlier this year. But in this case, The Old Guard is a solid, entertaining action thriller whose individual parts, while strong, don't quite add up to a compelling whole.
(Some spoilers below, but no major twists revealed.)
Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love and Basketball), the film is an adaptation of the comic of the same name by Eisner-award-winning author Greg Rucka (Lazarus, Wonder Woman), with art by Leandro Fernandez (Deadpool, Punisher: MAX). The main protagonist is Andromache of Scythia (Theron), aka Andy, who has been trapped in an immortal life for centuries for reasons that are never explained. The term "immortal" isn't entirely accurate, since these people do eventually die; one day, in some unforeseen future, their bodies will simply stop regenerating as mysteriously as they started. But by typical human lifespan standards, they're pretty much immortal.
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