Post Old Guard 2 Spoiler Based Thoughts, Ratings, and Trigger Warnings.
so that was a movie. if you weren’t following along with my 123 thoughts i had while watching they are all in my previous post. but after consuming the entire movie and then screaming into the void i have thoughts.
First: The Bad
so first and foremost i believe that the movie is pretty mid. its a fun action romp with some cool set designs, but it is missing parts that made the original good. it doesn’t have an ending but instead just a cliffhanger, its missing some of the relationships that made us enjoy the first one. i did rewatch the first right before watching the second so perhaps i’m biased because of that. focusing on the relationship part i found that joe and nicky fighting was far too much of the runtime, they get one action scene before they start fighting then they don’t have a moment together really until right before the finale battle. they also introduced new characters that didn’t fit right, though i will say i honestly think tuah had great chemistry with every character.
my other big gripe was the lore. in movie 1 we are given some hard lines: you die and wake up immortal, you then have dreams of all the other immortals until you meat them, and one day it goes away. simple rules. that start to drift away immediately in movie 2. tuah is an ancient immortal (older and jesus if my math is good) who has only ever met andy but no one dreams of him, fine, weird but maybe it’s because he’s so old, but the main bad guy discord (yes that is the name they gave her) is even older and only nile has ever dreamed of her despite the fact that she hasn’t met any of them. speaking of nile, she hasn’t a power special to her because she’s the last immortal, which is a whole different can of worms, but she can take away people’s immortality by stabbing them. which is so silly i can’t even think about it. and the big bad’s plan? is to get nile to stab the others to get their immortality.
and my last complaint is that booker is so off putting this movie. spoilers he’s in it. but he has a few things that bother me, and to be clear i do really like the character and his nuance. he fulfills the trope of suicidal immortal perfectly while also having more traits to him. but in this movie after find out that nile can take immortality away, then the ex-immortal can transfer it away, he tricks her into stabbing him so he can give the immortality to andy. he does not get consent from the girls despite the fact that to me this feels like both of them were unwilling parts of his suicide. because his death felt like a suicide to me. now everyone can read what they want into movies, but his death was not needed. it did not give andy more time because she just sat there watching and trying to save him. it did nothing to the plot. and it was a cruel and painful death.
Second: The Good
every actor brought their a game. quyhn was just as strange and unpredictable as expected. the bad guy felt underwhelming until she wasn’t. tuah had excellent chemistry with everyone, i even thought he was brought on to be a love interest to one of the singles in the movie. and the original cast slipped right back into these rolls perfectly, i had expected some fanonization of the characters especially nicky and joe, but they all felt so identical to their original roles. i mentioned above that joe and nicky are fighting for a long part of the runtime, but it’s mostly because joe has been in contact with booker this whole time, which originally felt wrong because joe was the most angry at booker, but his dialogue and acting made it make sense.
the action was choreographed well. maybe not as great as the first movie, and i think the opening scene needs work, but the action is great. there is my favorite type of fight scene at one point, which is people in a small area, and i also really enjoyed the final fight. i didn’t notice any time where the henchmen went one after another at our heroes which i think is a good litmus test. and i truly enjoyed some of the close ups during the fight. there was one moment that confused me in the final fight but i honestly think that was my fault. if i had to pick a weak spot in the fight choreography i’d say it would be any spear work.
i also found the music fantastic, it ebbed and flowed just right. i did notice that the half decade between movies made the music style change, but i am not sure it was a bad thing. the songs were catchy and fit in the movie just like last time. one that sticks out is after a fight andy pants in time with the songs beat. it could have been cheesy but it wasn’t because of the emotional weight of the scene and the good song choice.
Third: The Ratings
i am going to give this movie several ratings based on my own personal opinions! if you disagree that’s okay! but please don’t be a jerk about it!
Plot: 📖📖.5/5 the plot was good but it didn’t stand out. it’s a mid action movie. i would probably watch it again but i won’t find myself drawn to it. and it ends on a cliffhanger so it doesn’t feel like a full movie.
Characters: 🪓🪓🪓🪓/5 the characters are all excellent but they gave us too many too many new characters (including quyhn) and i personally don’t like what they did with booker
Acting: 🕴️🕴️🕴️🕴️.5/5 the acting is amazing but uma thurman fell flat until the end when we found out why she was doing this.
Cinematography: 🎥🎥🎥.5/5 it’s good. not as good as the first one. and the sets are mostly amazing, but the opening set is less than stellar and it’s impossible to get a read on the final battle ground until the end. but each country had its own unique style except possibly rome and paris.
Dialogue: 📣📣📣📣/5 it’s good. there were several lines i felt needed to be written down in my notes about the movie but honestly there were also lines that made me cringe a little. i also enjoy how much they spoke other languages this time, but the captions weren’t always captioning it, sometimes you would get a “speaking french” and other times it would tell you what they were saying.
Sound Design: 🎙️🎙️.5/5 the music was amazing like i talked about in my review but i found that the sound design was lacking in the diegetic noise, one of the scenes i remember best in the first one is the bullets falling, in this one there are a few swooshes of the ax but otherwise it’s pretty nonexistent.
Emotional Impact: 🫀🫀🫀/5 if you read my live thoughts you would know i went irate when booker died. and that i felt cheated by his death for several reasons. so three is all they get.
Overall: 🍿🍿🍿.43 out of 5. i think it’s a major downgrade from the first but i’d watch it again. i honestly thought id put it closer to a 2.75 before doing all these ratings. i also think as far as sequels go i only ever give them a 3.75/5 or so, meaning this is pretty good. like it’s not amazing and im gonna be feeling some sort of way about it for a long time but it is a sequel and it did most of its job.
Forth: The Bizarrely Specific Trigger Warnings
i am going to assume the first one was watching and that you know what the blood and gore and swearing is like. so these will be so specific you don’t even know.
1. there is no kissing.
2. suicidal tendencies and actions resulting in death
3. death of immortals
4. non construal power use (both the person with powers and the person having them be used on them don’t consent)
5. 500 years at sea
6. exs fighting
7. currents fighting
8. mortal vs immortal racism (i think it’s important to mention that uma thurman says the last name freeman like she doesn’t believe nile deserves to be free, that said it is more about nile being recently mortal than nile being black)
