I watched The Old Guard as soon as it dropped and loved it bigly. I’ll review in the next full newsletter, but for now please enjoy this great bit in The New York Times about just how fucking good Theron is as an action star.
It’s not just that Theron throws her punches with force and precision, or executes her stunts successfully; this is not a matter of a capable action star hitting her marks. Watching Charlize Theron fight has become one of the singular pleasures of contemporary American cinema, as close as we’re going to get to the endorphin rush of watching Gene Kelly dance, or Judy Garland sing, or Charlie Chaplin pantomime…
One my fave Theron roles is her MI6 agent, Lorraine Broughton in Atomic Blonde (adapted from Antony Johnston’s graphic novel, below) which has some of the best fight choreography of the last decade.
Like Wick, Theron… thinks brilliantly on her feet, inventively turning the materials at hand into improvised deadly weapons; she wields and deploys a stiletto heel, a corkscrew, a ladder, a shelving unit, a handful of keys, a gun that’s run out of bullets, and a strategically unhooked seatbelt. In the film’s best action sequence, her investigative visit to an abandoned apartment is interrupted by a team of policemen, whom she dispatches with a water hose, a kitchen pot and a refrigerator door.
There’s probably a big thinky comparison to be made between The Old Guard and Chris Hemworth’s Extraction, but for now I think I’m just gonna go roll some Youtube of Charlize Theron wailing on dudes.
Man...wow. Just finished it and shes is still..jumpable capable and hold s scene. Pretty good show and don't mind the storyline either. No two is a shoe-in IMHO!- She's in the SPANKY cat for mine
mmm I too enjoyed the physicality in Old Guard. The punches, kicks and blows could be felt. Though my favourite scene was when toxic masculinity gets slapped down in the truck when Joe and Nicky are captured.
Man...wow. Just finished it and shes is still..jumpable capable and hold s scene. Pretty good show and don't mind the storyline either. No two is a shoe-in IMHO!- She's in the SPANKY cat for mine
go dam its jumpable!...and great to watch!
Thanks for the heads up JB, just ordered the graphic novels from Comics Etc :)
Old Guard was amazing.
Do comics make a better tool to adapt to action based movies since they are a more visual medium than books?
mmm I too enjoyed the physicality in Old Guard. The punches, kicks and blows could be felt. Though my favourite scene was when toxic masculinity gets slapped down in the truck when Joe and Nicky are captured.
I quite enjoyed it and thought she was great. Unlike John Wick 3 where Keanu looked old and slow.