The Ultimate Superheroines Forum

This movie is a superhero movie, released in 2020 and directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, who foregrounds "representation" in her productions.
It's based on a comic book by Greg Rucka about a group of superpowered immortals (so basically, multiple Highlanders).

Gina Prince-Bythewood is also the director of the Woman King, a movie which makes up a bunch of fake history as it goes along, apparently.
And she was also going to be the director of the ill-fated Black Cat and Silver Sable, which never made it to the screen but got far along enough
to still get its own Wikipedia page. In the proper hands, such a movie could be one of the sexiest productions to ever hit the screen.
But Heaven knows how that would have turned out with her at the helm.

Anyway, I briefly mentioned The Old Guard in the Madame Web thread, but I never made a thread about the movie itself because when I watched it,
I felt that it was boring and formulaic, with very little that was sexy and not any significant peril. Charlize Theron is a beautiful woman, and has looked hot in other action movies, but in the Old Guard they reduced her to a soulless Amazon. It was nearly impossible to care about the characters or the plot. Even though it was obvious that they were setting things up for a sequel, I figured that this movie sank like such a heavy stone that a second film would never happen.

However, after having forgotten about this movie for years, suddenly Giant Freaking Robot wrote an article about it today, trying to desperately get someone (anyone!) to watch it.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/n ... s-BB1qrn5U

And apparently, a sequel (Old Guard 2) to this movie which cost $70 million has already been made with another female director and already wrapped, according to a statement from Theron last week in Variety.

So..I figured I'd ask on the board here if anyone had taken the time to actually watch The Old Guard besides me, and if you had any opinions on it.
If not, that's fine. Just asking around.

I remember getting excited when I was about to watch it on Netflix years ago.
But then I also remember getting somewhat disappointed after watching it
Maybe I was expecting some awesome peril scenes. But yeah, it was received well by critics and viewers.

For me it is a type of film you only get to watch once (or not), then just totally forget it existed.
But it's definitely better than Theron's Aeon Flux live action

I really didn't like it, for the same reason as I didn't like the background of Wolverine in those movies, or the Highlander as a setting. If you've got a bunch of characters who are functionally immortal because of age and super-powered healing, and those characters spend all their time killing people in combat that carries no material risk for them, that that character is a piece of shit.

Also the lack of imagination is crushing. You live forever and do fuck all with it? Just be a murder hobo? Why? Why are the characters not kings of the world? Because that requires worldbuilding and effort.

Dealing with an immortal requires special thought. I happen to find myself drawn to the dilemmas of an immortal, which is why I've written stuff with Felix Faust (supposedly 5,000 years old) and Vandal Savage (goes back to the stone age). Their motivations can be interesting IF you explore them.

joejanus wrote: ↑

1 year ago

Dealing with an immortal requires special thought. I happen to find myself drawn to the dilemmas of an immortal, which is why I've written stuff with Felix Faust (supposedly 5,000 years old) and Vandal Savage (goes back to the stone age). Their motivations can be interesting IF you explore them.

The lack of accomplishment always disappoints me. There's no reason not to be bigger than Jesus. A person who cannot die would redefine civilisation.