'The Old Guard 2': Netflix sequel has more lore, more laws, less fun

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Whoever said death is easy, living is hard hasn’t met Andromache the Scythian.

For millennia, this immortal warrior has protected humanity, even when humanity doesn’t seem to deserve it. Living is, quite literally, her superpower. (I’ll spare you the blasé, millennial-core joke here.)

Now Andy (Charlize Theron) is back in “The Old Guard 2,” still leading her team of fellow immortal fighters: Nicky and Joe (Luca Marinelli and Marwan Kenzari), two warring Crusaders who fell in love; Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), who fought for Napoleon; and Nile (KiKi Layne), the cohort’s newest addition, a U.S. Marine plucked from service in Afghanistan.

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Victoria Mahoney directs this sequel, now streaming on Netflix, a follow-up to 2020’s fun and complex superhero flick “The Old Guard,” helmed by Gina Prince-Bythewood.

After all these centuries, what keeps these heroes in the fight?

It’s Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), an ex-CIA agent who sells the immortals out in “The Old Guard” only to become an ally in the sequel, who discovers the team’s ripple effect. A life saved in one generation can result in a Nobel Peace Prize four generations hence (though this logic escapes me — surely evil can ripple out as easily as goodness? Surely a henchman killed is as likely to have saintly offspring as anyone else?). But no matter; this realization keeps the world-weary Andy going.

Because there’s always evil to fight. “The Old Guard” villain was a Martin Shkreli-style pharma bro who wanted to mine the immortals for science. This time, the call is coming from inside the house.

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“The Old Guard 2” introduces not one but three new ancient immortals: Quynh (Veronica Ngô), Andy’s longtime companion and moral compass, who was drowned in an iron cage for witchcraft 500 years ago; Tuah (Henry Golding), a dedicated archivist who seems to exist just to explain immortal lore; and finally, an immortal so old she doesn’t even have a name, known instead as an abstract concept, Discord (Uma Thurman).

After eons of secrecy, Discord reveals herself for reasons her fellow immortals will soon find out.

The first “Old Guard” threads an impressive blockbuster needle, blending the action and body count of a “Mission: Impossible” with the warm appeal of historical fiction and the ineffable thrills of legends and magic.

Despite excellent performances all around, that balance is off in this follow-up, which has more characters but is less character-driven. Prince-Bythewood’s tenderness with these immortals — still fragile and human, bonded by love and isolation — felt intimate and special, highlighting the timeworn charm of centuries-old friendships, as well as Nicky and Joe’s 1,000-year love story.

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This sequel manages to capture some of that historical appeal in one small, lovely scene, as Andy walks through a street in Rome and through her own memories of that place, which flash before our eyes.

But the action feels less successful, as the incredible combination of fighting styles — aided by some fun weapons, new and ancient — gets swallowed in a flurry of quick cuts. (This sequel does up the gross factor in its action significantly, to show us these characters' healing abilities — watching Nicky’s foot get ripped off as he’s dragged from a speeding car wasn’t my favorite visual.)

Greg Rucka, who adapted “The Old Guard” from the comic he created with Leandro Fernandez, also co-wrote this screenplay with Sarah L. Walker. Unfortunately, the sequel lacks the emotional deftness and logical density of its predecessor, and keeps characters pointlessly withholding information from one another for no discernible reason other than that their ignorance is necessary for the plot to continue.

Thanks to resident librarian Tuah, “Old Guard 2” layers on lore explaining how and when an immortal can lose their immortality — but adding new rules to a universe can create logical holes that didn’t exist previously, and that’s never a good distraction.

It’s also too obviously one piece in a franchise. We lose one immortal for good, but we lose others as they’re vacuum-sealed and shipped off to who-knows-where at Discord’s instruction, teeing us up for another adventure. Hopefully, that one will be a bit more fun.