Written by Sam Clark 

Certificate: 15 

Running time: 105 minutes

Director: Victoria Mahoney

Five years seems like an eternity in Hollywood for a sequel to finally come about. The biggest risk of such a gap is quite obvious: do people remember or even still care about the film? Most follow on two/three years later, but anything longer, you start to forget or lose interest. This isn't always the case, as ''The Old Guard 2'' was sadly affected by the 2023 writer's strike and so they had their hands tied. But that doesn't stop the fact that I still found myself scratching my head trying to remember what happened in the first film. We always complain about the use of exposition (I'm looking at you ''Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning''), but, I have to admit, it would have helped here. 

Once again based on the graphic novel of the same name by Leandro Fernandez, Victoria Mahoney takes over direction from Gina Prince-Heywood who helmed the first with returning screenwriter Greg Rucka and new writer Sarah L. Walker. Charlize Theron reprises her role as ''Andy'', the immortal mercenary from the first film who is now mortal (for reasons I cannot remember - I perhaps should have done my homework to remind myself but that's the film's job not mine). Her team includes ''Nile'' (Kiki Layne), ''Joe'' (Marwan Kenzari), ''Nicky'' (Luca Marinelli), ''Booker'' (Matthias Schoenaerts) and ''Copley'' (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and ''Tuah'' (Henry Golding). They are all pulled out of hiding when two enemies emerge: ''Quynh'' (Veronica Ngo) and the world's first ever immortal ''Discord'' (Uma Thurman). Let the battle commence once more. 

Image credit: IMDb / Eli Joshua Ade / Netflix

I tried as hard as I could to get on board with ''The Old Guard 2'', but sadly to no avail. Not only is the gap between films just far too long (this should catch you up in some form but frustratingly does not), everything is just generally undercooked anyway. We start proceedings with an extravagant set piece (which is how all of these things start), which is perfectly flashy and impressively executed, yet I could not tell you the point of this scene or the objective. A bunch of characters are running about fighting, shooting, punching baddies, but tell me why they are there and for what reason. The rest of the film is sadly no different. What's ironic is that there is a lot of exposition here, but nothing relating to the last film, only material for this new storyline. You are given a few lines in relation to the past, if that, which is just not good enough. 

In order to move forward with the sequel, yes, you have to explore a new avenue. But, if it's been a hot minute (which it has), at least dedicate some of that to catching the audience up, even if some may not need it as others might. It wasn't before long that I realised this would not be the case, and I knew I was in trouble. When that miserable realisation sank in, I at least had the action do enjoy. Charlize Theron has proven herself as a feisty badass before, and is no different here. She throws herself into everything which she spectacularly and impressively showed with ''Atomic Blonde''. The physicality and choreography was the main selling point before and it the same again here. This is one of the rare films that seems to know how to correctly and effectively capture fights in camera, as opposed to just violently shaking everything so we can't see what's going on.

Image credit: IMDb / Netflix

As a die hard martial arts cinema fan, I thought this did better than most, but that's the extent of my praise and where it comes to an end. Uma Thurman's villain does not feature as prominently as you may like, but since this does set up a third film, expect to see more of her next time ; but does this excuse a poor introduction to her character? To say everyone else just feels expendable is putting it lightly as I rapidly found myself caring less and less as time went on. When you have characters you no longer care about, that takes away any sense of jeopardy or danger as you are no longer bothered whether they live or die. It's a shame ''The Old Guard 2'' has suffered the issues it has (some out of it's control) since the first was an nice, crunchy piece of action. Hopefully, they can find their feet once again for the third instalment. 

Available on Netflix now.