“Is The Old Guard 2 a Franchise-Killer?”

July 03, 2025: When The Old Guard dropped in July 2020, it offered a glimmer of blockbuster escapism during the depths of pandemic lockdowns — bigger, slicker, and smarter than Netflix’s usual throwaway action fare. But like many streaming hits, it was quickly consumed and just as quickly forgotten. Now, after a tortured post-production process and a three-year delay, The Old Guard 2 has finally arrived, only to prove why some sequels should never leave development hell.

Picking up with Charlize Theron’s Andy, a once-immortal warrior who lost her powers in the first film, the sequel attempts to raise the stakes by introducing new threats: a resurrected old ally (Ngô Thanh Vân) and a vengeful immortal played by Uma Thurman. But rather than building tension, the convoluted mythology demands a Wikipedia refresher to keep track of who’s who and why it matters.

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Theron, as magnetic as ever, tries valiantly to inject life into a script that gives her little to work with. Sadly, The Old Guard 2 is a messy, rushed affair — clocking in at a brisk 97 minutes that feels more like a desperate sprint than a tightly paced thrill ride. Replacing director Gina Prince-Bythewood with Victoria Mahoney has sapped the sequel of both the original’s exhilarating action sequences and its groundbreaking queer representation. Where the first film featured a powerful romantic moment between two immortal lovers, this follow-up reduces them to a fleeting forehead touch, while Andy’s queerness from the comics is scrubbed into ambiguous “companionship.”

The film’s biggest sin comes in its final moments, where a cliffhanger sets up a third installment that’s far from guaranteed. Instead of resolving its own story, it ends on a bafflingly unfinished note — a move reminiscent of the ill-fated Divergent series, which left audiences hanging forever when its last movie was canceled.

Despite Theron’s efforts, as well as the underused talents of Chiwetel Ejiofor and a slitheringly fun Uma Thurman, The Old Guard 2 fails to recapture the first film’s spark. What could have been an exciting expansion of a promising franchise instead lands as a frustratingly forgettable chapter that might — and perhaps should — mark the end of the road.