The old guard

Adapting a successful comic book series is often a difficult art, so it is important not only not to betray the author's version but also to find the right approach to transcribe into film language a predefined universe with its own rules. The worldwide success of Marvel Studios giving life to characters from the publisher Marvel Comics and in the same but often less successful way that of Warner Bros with DC Comics means that many studios have also wanted to adapt comics to the screen in their turn but for the most part without achieving the same critical and public success. Yet Netflix seems to have found the right approach as shown last April by Sam Hargrave's excellent Tyler Rake (extraction) (2020). In this case The Old Guard benefits not only from the presence as scriptwriter of the creator of this comic book series Greg Rucka but also from the presence of actress Charlize Theron (also here producer) and a cast including KiKi Layne, Marwan Kenzari, Matthias Schoenaerts, Chiwetel Ejiofor.

As in the comic book series, a group of four immortal mercenaries led by Andy (Charlize Theron), including Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli). This elite puts their power of immortality into dangerous missions for causes they believe in. When a new young immortal is detected (Nile Freeman / Kiki Layne), Andy decides to recruit her to join their troupe and learn to master her new immortal powers. Meanwhile, a powerful pharmaceutical company aware of their existence wants to capture them and experiment on them to find out where their regenerative abilities and immortality come from.

Featuring many action scenes worthy of today's blockbusters, the story begins with exotic landscapes and a willingness to add depth to its characters to bring a successful new franchise to life. By wanting to put in place perfectly defined characters and using some feedback from the past to better understand the motivations of these immortals, the rhythm of the film lacks efficiency at times and seems to drag on unnecessarily. In this respect, the editing of the film would have deserved to be reviewed and surely to shorten some scenes and especially to privilege more spectacular moments. We thus stay far from the perfect rhythm of Tyler Rake (extraction) but what the film loses in action, it gains in emotions notably thanks to the interpretation of Charlize Theron also perfect in the action scenes (we still remember Atomic blonde).

Despite this rhythm, the film benefits from the careful direction of Gina Prince-Bythewood (Love & Basktball (2000), Lily Owens' The Secret (2008) and Beyond the lights (2014) and the convincing photography of Barry Ackroyd (Dark places (2015), Jason Boune (2016), Scandal (2019). Moreover, when discovering this film, it's impossible not to think of Highlander's cinematic saga, more precisely the first flight (the only one not to be missed) and its numerous flashbacks in time, with the music of the band Queen to reinforce the climax of this film. In this case, we would have liked a better use of the music and above all better and longer scenes from the past in order to reinforce Andy's sadness linked to the loss of another immortal woman who meant a lot to her and whose disappearance still weighs on him hundreds of years later.

In the same way the end of the film seems to put in place a better organization of this troop of immortals and especially the presence of a new enemy wishing to take revenge. Nevertheless, the film cruelly lacks strong scenes and seems to be content to be just a blockbuster too mechanical to be totally convincing. The potential to make sequels is nevertheless there if we have a better script and a director more used to making action films...

The Old Guard
Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood
Produced by David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Don Granger, Charlize Theron, Beth Kono, A.J. Dix, Marc Evans
Written by Greg Rucka
Based on The Old Guard by Greg Rucka, Leandro Fernández
Starring Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, Chiwetel Ejiofor
Music by Hauschka, Dustin O'Halloran
Cinematography : Tami Reiker, Barry Ackroyd
Edited by Terilyn A. Shropshire
Production company : Skydance Media, Denver and Delilah Productions
Distributed by Netflix
Release date : July 10, 2020 (United States, France…)
Running time : 124 minutes

Seen on 07 July 2020

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