Tuesday, 21 July 2020

VOD: The Old Guard (dir: Gina Prince-Bythewood, 2020)

"I've been here before....over and over again...."

Amazon's second big action movie of the tail-end of Covid-19 lockdown - in the absence of the promised but postponed cinema-released Summer 2020 blockbusters - is proficient but not as entertaining overall as Extraction.  Again based on a comic series - but incredibly with no ties to Marvel or DC! - the twist of an immortal and near-indestructible quartet of timeless and ageless mercenaries creates sufficient interest, with a 'new recruit' providing the audience's get-in, but a boggle-eyed British billionaire trying to capture them to monetise their DNA is far more predictable and less satisfying.  The action/fight sequences are well-staged, and Theron, as ever, never wavers in performance for a moment, but the whole enterprise is a painfully straight, dour, grey, sombre affair, which cries out for a bit of levity - the troop may be world-weary from living through centuries (which some of the extended 'dramatic' sequences also feel like), but surely they would not have lost all of their sense of humour along the way?

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