Charlize Theron makes a very believable world-weary, fist-slinging badass. In Netflix’s latest comic-adaptation-cum-action blockbuster, The Old Guard, Theron plays an ageless warrior, Andromache of Scythia (Andy for short), who has been fighting for humanity for so long she can’t even remember how old she is. She and the team she leads are practically unkillable, capable of healing from even the most grievous physical wounds, but when a new potential immortal, Nile, a young Marine played by KiKi Layne, emerges for the first time in centuries, she finds Andy embittered and listless. Deathlessness, and helping a species determined to dive towards violence and chaos, come with steep emotional penalties.
Of course, The Old Guard could have easily skirted all of the murky emotional depths and produced a flashier, boring movie about cool ancient people who are really great with swords. Credit for the movie’s surprises—it’s inclusivity, it’s thoughtfulness, it’s diversity—goes in large part to two people: Greg Rucka, who wrote the original comic The Old Guard, and to Gina Prince-Bythewood, who directed the Netflix adaptation.
Prince-Bythewood is best known for directing indie films with deeply personal s