I read an article about the Netflix series “The Old Guard” that made it sound really cool. A group of soldiers led by Andromache “Andy” of Scythia (Charlize Theron) is exposed as millennia-old immortals and must fight to keep themselves from being turned into lab rats for a pharma-bro’s plans to make quadrillions of dollars by bottling the fountain of youth. It seemed to have plenty of opportunities for great fights and kick-ass women, and while it had both of those, it was weak in several other areas.
Andy is so frustratingly vague in discussing her ancient past that it becomes almost irrelevant to everyone who she is (though her name, Andromache of Scythia, would seem to imply a connection to Hector of ancient Greece’s Trojan War fame - which goes completely unmentioned, so…who knows???); Pharma-Bro bad guy tries really hard to be mean, but he just comes across as spoiled, petulant, and desperately in need of the discipline a 9-5 McDonald’s job would provide; and the plot gave me almost no surprises, although Chiwetel Ejiofor (Serenity, Doctor Strange, The Lion King 2019) was perfectly cast as the turncoat bad guy. Charlize Theron is wonderful, of course, and watching her fight scenes is always a joy - though no movie has yet to top her 7-minute-long, single-take fight scene in “Atomic Blonde” (R).
Especially frustrating, though, was the lost opportunity to give a great female lead in an action flick the opportunity to drive a movie forward. At no point in “The Old Guard” did Andy initiate any action of her own - everything was a reaction to something the bad guys (and note, they were all guys) did to her or her team. For comparison, look at the “Mission Impossible” movies in which Tom Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character initiates a sequence of actions that turns the tables on the bad guy, or the latest “Charlie’s Angels” (2019) in which the women initiate most of the plot’s forward momentum. ***SPOILERS*** Andy never did that: her team gets ambushed, and she seeks vengeance; two of her team members get abducted, and she must rescue them; she dreams of a newly arrived immortal, and she must go and recruit her. ***END SPOILERS*** That lack of agency by the main character left me feeling empty by the end of the movie, especially considering how much time, talent, and money obviously went into making this film.
Overall, “The Old Guard” is a great way to waste an evening. The action is fun (though predictable), and the fight scenes are well done. I wish Charlize Theron’s character had driven more of the plot forward by her own actions instead of simply reacting to what happened around her, but that lack of character agency did not ruin the experience. As for Bechdels, it passes: 1) There are 2 women in lead roles in the film; 2) they speak to each other frequently throughout the film; 3) and they never speak about their relationship to any male love interest.