The Old Guard 2
"That woman has forgotten more ways to kill than entire armies will ever learn." - Booker
release year: 2025
genre: action/fantasy
viewing setting: home streaming 7/14/25
synopsis: The team of immortal soldiers gains a new member, and also a couple of dangerous enemies.
impressions: This is a continuation of the first movie, and was largely fine. There are new characters as well as new "rules" about how one of these people can lose (and regain) their immortality. There is also plenty of action - shooting, slashing, punching, and kicking. My sole problem has to do with a group of people with a combined ten thousand years of combat experience knowingly walking into a trap...and, predictably, losing since they went in without even trying to find some advantage or protection against the obvious trap which was set by foes more brutal and serious. Whatever. The end was a cliffhanger for a future third installment and brought me back to 1980 and the feeling I had in the theater at the sudden end of The Empire Strikes Back.
acting: The five main immortals and their non-immortal helper all return, nothing new there. Van Veronica Ngo also returns as an immortal who's been trapped at the bottom of the sea for five hundred years and (predictably) wants some revenge. Uma Thurman is a new immortal who's hostile for reasons that remain unclear until late in the game.
final word: Worthy watching if you liked the first one.
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