I really wasn’t going to watch The Old Guard because I thought it looked like a generic action movie, but then I ended up hearing some positive buzz about it in the past week and decided to try it for myself. While the movie was slightly better than I was expecting, I still found it to be more on the generic side than I did the special side.

Without a doubt, the most interesting thing about The Old Guard is its initial premise. The story is about a group of immortals who have become mercenaries, and as a result have helped determine the fates of many important events in history, without receiving recognition for them. They have tried to remain secret over the years to do what they do, but this begins to change when two things happen. The first is that a new immortal is found, and she gains some attention when she survives a fatal knife wound in a mission for the Marines. The second is that a big pharma guy learns of the immortals and hunts them down in order to try to experiment on them and find the secret to immortality.

In the end, the problem with The Old Guard is that it’s one of those movies where I was far more intrigued by it on a conceptual level than I was with anything I was actually watching on-screen. I was constantly asking myself questions about how their immortality works, but this wasn’t explored to the depth I was hoping for in the movie itself. I did find the story to be interesting enough that I ended up liking the movie in the end, but I still feel like I might have loved it if it was more compelling than it actually is.

I’m not sure what people loved about this movie, but from where I’m sitting I think that the main reason to watch it is for the premise alone. If you were interested in it just from a pure action standpoint, I do think it slightly disappoints on that front. It has its moments, but it definitely doesn’t break new ground. I do think The Old Guard is worth a watch because of its fun premise, but I do want to temper everyone’s expectations that I didn’t think it was anything mind-blowing.

3.5/5