Those with a Netflix subscription are constantly treated to exciting new content, both TV shows and movies. Regarding the latter, Charlize Theron’s The Old Guard broke records on Netflix upon it release, resulting in the quick green lighting of a sequel. Critics have seen that follow-up film, and they seem pretty agreed on it being a “forgettable” second entry in the burgeoning franchise. Let’s break it all down.
While not necessarily one of Charlize Theron’s best movies, The Old Guard offered some thrilling battles, and once again proved how great the Oscar-winning actress is at action. There was good will with critics ahead of the sequel arriving, but unfortunately the response for The Old Guard 2 has been quite chilly. For instance, David Ehrlich’s response for IndieWire called the movie “disposable”, with one particular section reading:
For another, The Old Guard 2 is frustratingly — if also pointedly — rushed for a movie about people who’ve been alive for eons, and it never gives any of its characters the chance to meaningfully hash out how the bonds of friendship might pull tighter as they get twisted over the course of a few hundred decades.
IGN’s Eric Goldman compared The Old Guard 2 to its predecessor, and unfortunately the follow-up failed to meet those expectations. As he shared:
The Old Guard 2 arrives to belatedly pick up where the well made original left off, but with diminished results. This is a much less engaging continuation of its fun Highlander-esque concept and action scenes that are a step down from the first film. It’s often still serviceable enough as a way to once more see Charlize Theron as an action badass – never a bad thing – but doesn’t do nearly enough with its big Charlize vs. Uma selling point and fails to give the rest of its cast enough to do before ending with a cliffhanger that is more exasperating than tantalizing.
Ouch. The Old Guard’s ending was a cliffhanger, and it sounds like the Netflix sequel followed that tradition. We’ll just have to see if fans enjoy that final twist or not.
Rolling Stone’s David Fear writes the action sequel feel “ancient”, and not in a good way. As he writes:
The Old Guard 2 isn’t quite the movie it wants you to think it is. Or rather, it’s dangerously close to not being a movie at all so much as just one more piece of expensive “content” that the streamer can slap into menus and use to game your viewing algorithms.
Some journalists took further aim at the main story of The Old Guard franchise, as well as the technical elements of the sequel. The Times’ Kevin Maher didn’t hold back his thoughts on the streaming project, saying:
The insuperable movie-killing problems here run the gamut from technical — horrible lighting, terrible echoey sound, utterly rubbish fight choreography — to fundamental storytelling flaws. Is it credible, for instance, to think that the gift of immortality immediately compels anyone who receives it to become a karate-chopping killer for the US government? No rewriting of philosophy, science or theology? Not even lying low for a while like Christopher Lambert in Highlander or Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire?
Well, that was honest. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman spoke about how the script seemingly fails its all-star cast of actors, which includes Theron, Uma Thurman, and Henry Golding. As he wrote:
But for all the talk of centuries gone by, The Old Guard 2 feels like a time-tripping action fantasy made on the cheap. The issue of who’s immortal or not, and how you can turn immortal (or have that ability taken away), starts to seem part of some arbitrary movie game, like ‘Who’s got the detonator?’ And the actors, trapped in what is too often an empty somber talkfest, seem stranded in a way that they weren’t in the first film.
Of course, the true question is going to be how Netflix users respond to this project. Will The Old Guard 2 follow its predecessor and become insanely popular on the streamer? We’ve seen a discrepancy between critical and audience responses to movies, so perhaps this could be another example of that.
The Old Guard 2 is streaming on Netflix now as part of the 2025 movie release list. At the time of writing this story, it isn’t trending in the streamer’s Top 10 just yet.