The Old Guard

 A 2020 superhero movie staring our ver own Matthias Schoenaerts and Charlize Theron, me and Noshi sat down to watch this on a saturday night Netflix night.

And it was uite an enjoyable movie, something I am positively suprised about.

Usually when you read Netflix top in the chats and the likes, the movies are uite fankly, horrible (Birdbox anyone?).  But not with this superhero movie, even though it has the usual clichees for the genre like one losing powers, a sell out, etc...

Andromache "Andy" of Scythia, Booker, Joe, and Nicky are centuries-old warriors with unexplained regenerative healing abilities who use their vast experience to work as mercenaries, taking missions that help people. Breaking their rule of never working for the same employers twice, they accept a job from former CIA operative James Copley to rescue a group of kidnapped girls in South Sudan. During the mission, which proves to be a ruse, they are ambushed and killed. After quickly recovering and killing their attackers, they realize that Copley set them up and remotely filmed their regeneration.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, U.S. Marine Nile Freeman has her throat slit while taking down a military target during a house search, only to recover without a scratch. Later, she shares a disturbing dream with the other immortals, who are then alerted to her existence, as they experience dreams of any new immortals until found. Andy tracks down a confused Nile and extracts her from Afghanistan before military personnel can transfer her for further testing.

Copley shows the video of the ambush to pharmaceutical executive Steven Merrick, who sends operatives to capture the team. Andy brings Nile to a safe house in France, where she meets the rest of their team. She is told about the female immortal Quynh, the first of Andy's comrades, who was captured, accused of witchcraft and lost to them when cast somewhere into the sea in an iron maiden, and has been continually drowning ever since. The group also reveals that they are not truly immortal: their ability to heal eventually stops, without warning, which happened to a previous immortal, Lykon.

 

The group is ambushed by Merrick's forces; Joe and Nicky are captured while a seemingly deceased Booker is left behind. While Booker regenerates, Andy kills all of their assailants but is wounded and realizes she is not healing. Booker locates Copley, while Nile separates from the group to reunite with her family.

Andy and Booker confront Copley, only for Booker to betray Andy and shoot her, arguing that Merrick might find a way to end the immortality they have both grown weary of. As they are captured, however, Booker realizes that Andy is not healing. Copley has a change of heart when he sees that Merrick is willing to torture the immortals indefinitely to study them. Nile, having realized Booker sold out the group, arrives too late to intervene, but she convinces Copley to assist her in a rescue mission. She storms Merrick's London office and after she frees the rest of the immortals, they fight their way out through the rest of Merrick's security, with Nile saving Andy from Merrick by hurling him out of a window.

 

As punishment for his betrayal, the group sentence Booker to loneliness - forbidding Booker from contacting them for 100 years. The rest of the group meet with Copley, who explains how his research revealed their past missions had a greater effect than they ever knew, with the descendants of people they had rescued going on to help the world in many different ways. With renewed faith in their existence, the group tasks Copley with maintaining their secret and finding missions where they can have effect.

 

Six months later in Paris, a depressed and drunken Booker is astonished to find Quynh in his apartment.

Like I said, a good flick to watch for sure, and in a way one hopes for a seuel, though I doubt it would make it as enjoyable.  Perhaps indeed better to stop at a height...