How to Watch The Old Guard and Its Sequel Today

If you don't know how to watch The Old Guard, then you're in for a treat. This action-packed flick already has a second part out, so now's the perfect time to catch up. We're gonna walk through exactly where you can stream it across different online platforms. Stick around, because watching it doesn't have to turn into a maze of random searches or confusing options.

Part 1. The Old Guard Plot, Main Cast, Ratings, and Reviews

The Old Guard was released in 2020 and became an instant hit with the fans who love action-packed movies filled with gunfights and hand-to-hand combat. If you haven't watched it yet, here is everything you need to know about the movie.

Plot of The Old Guard

A group of closely bonded mercenaries has survived for centuries because they cannot die. They've used this power to fight in secret, protecting the world through different conflicts. When their abilities are revealed, they face a new danger-one that wants to copy their power. The group must act quickly to remove this threat before it spreads any further.

The Old Guard Main Cast and Characters

Charlize Theron plays Andy, the leader of the crew. Kiki Layne joins in as Nile, a Marine who just found out she's one of them.

Booker, played by Matthias Schoenaerts, is the one carrying a lot more regret than bullets. Marwan Kenzari and Luca Marinelli play Joe and Nicky, a pair with the best love story you'll ever see between two warriors.

Chiwetel Ejiofor's Copley has secrets, and Harry Melling's Merrick? He's the guy you're going to hate instantly.

The Old Guard Ratings Breakdown

IMDb users gave The Old Guard a 6.7 out of 10 based on nearly 199,000 votes. The highest number of users gave it a 7, followed by 8, and then 6. A smaller number went all the way up to 10.

The movie gathered ratings from across the world on IMDb, with the United States, the United Kingdom, Turkey, Germany, and the Netherlands leading the way. That spread shows it wasn't just a hit in the US because it reached a wide audience that's still rating it years later.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the professional movie critics gave the movie a solid 80% but the general viewers were a bit shy and gave a handsome 70%.

What the Critics Said

The Old Guard follows Gina Prince-Bythewood's directing style, just like in Love and Basketball. She centers emotional moments and lets the characters sit with what they've felt for centuries. Their memories of loss appear often, and the camera gives those moments as much attention as any fight. One scene shows Andy with a piece of baklava. Another shows her slicing down an enemy. The film treats them both the same.

Theron brings physical command and emotional depth, proven already in Mad Max: Fury Road. Her plane fight scene with Nile was quite intense, and it was grounded by the quiet flashes of pain and healing. With Nile's braids and Andy's Karen-style coif, the fight plays like a vengeful commentary. The cast includes a variety of races, and it never once feels forced or pandering.

Prince-Bythewood adds the kind of grand moments she used in Love and Basketball and Beyond the Lights. Joe and Nicky's moment after being captured reflects that. After a guard mocks their relationship, Joe replies with a declaration of love that puts Avengers: Endgame's moment to shame.

Writer Greg Rucka sticks to the usual genre beats. There's a rule-breaker, a twisted villain, a betrayal, a rescue, and a sequel setup. Characters talk often, and each time, we come away feeling like we know them. So when the torture-filled middle part hits, we care. The horror of being trapped in endless medical experiments never lets up.

You may have seen John Wick, where the action scenes go through the cuts a lot, and your eyes are always rotating to find the middle ground. But that's not the case with the Old Guard. Combat scenes are filmed in a way so you can follow the action, and edited for full impact by Terilyn A. Shropshire.

Part 2. How to Watch the Old Guard Online

The easiest way to watch The Old Guard is on Netflix. If you don't have Netflix, and that's a strange thing to say in this day and age because everybody has it, visit the Netflix website, sign up, choose a streaming plan, and then search for the movie. Both The Old Guard and its sequel are available there. Once you've logged in to Netflix, you can start watching without dealing with interruptions or playback issues.

If you don't want to pay for a subscription, you can still find both movies on several free streaming platforms. Some of these include MyFlixer, VexMovies, Divicast, FMovies, HDToday, Plex, Soap2Day, Putlocker, and 123Movies. These sites usually let you start streaming right away, without needing an account.

But free streaming comes with its own problems. Ads pop up almost every time you click something, whether you're browsing a streaming site or watching a movie. It slows things down and breaks the flow while you're trying to enjoy the action. The picture quality on these platforms is often lower than what Netflix offers, so you won't get the same visual sharpness or consistency.

Another issue is how often these platforms run into playback errors. Because the servers handle large traffic from free users, the movie might buffer a lot, crash midway, or sometimes vanish completely. There's no guarantee that it will always be available online. If you pause it and come back later, it might already be gone.

So if you want to watch The Old Guard with a better experience-no ads, no quality dips, and stable playback-Netflix is the most reliable option. But the free platforms are there if you're okay with the trade-offs and just want to stream it quickly.

Part 3. Is the Old Guard 2 Streaming Anywhere?

Yes, The Old Guard 2 is already available to stream. It was released on July 2nd on Netflix, and if you already have access, just search for the name The Old Guard 2 and hit play.

The quality is top-notch, the playback runs smoothly, and there's nothing interrupting your watch time. If you're planning to binge both movies, now's the time to do it.

The second part is also on some of the free streaming sites that host the first film.

The Plot and Story of the Old Guard 2

The Old Guard 2 follows the immortal mercenary team led by Andy (Charlize Theron). After the first film, Andy grapples with her newfound mortality while the team deals with Booker's (Matthias Schoenaerts) exile and the return of Quynh (Veronica Van), who was trapped at the bottom of the ocean for 500 centuries to form an alliance with Discord (Uma Thurman), the first immortal.

Discord, also once part of Andy's group, reveals her desire to prevent the Old Guard from interfering in human affairs.

However, Andy discovers that Discord has lost her own immortality and plans to use Nile's (KiKi Layne) unique ability to strip immortals of their power in order to regain her own.

Nile is the "Last Immortal" and possesses the ability to remove another immortal's powers by wounding them. Unbeknownst to Nile, it was her accidental wounding of Andy in the first film that caused Andy to lose her immortality. Tuah (Henry Golding), a historian of immortals, did mention that immortality can be transferred by those wounded by the Nile.

Discord lures the Old Guard into a trap at a decommissioned nuclear facility where she plans to detonate bombs. To allow Andy to escape and continue their mission, Booker willingly sacrifices his life by transferring his immortality to Andy, thus regaining her powers. Nile confronts Quynh and removes her immortality by wounding her, freeing Quynh from her eternal torment. However, Discord captures Nile and the remaining members of the Old Guard, escaping in a helicopter.

Andy and Quynh, now mortal, reconcile and vow to rescue their captured teammates, setting the stage for a potential third film. The ending leaves a craving for many questions that are unanswered, such as how Andy and Quynh will accomplish their mission and what Discord's ultimate fate will be. So, it seems that the possibility of another sequel is still there.

The Old Guard 2 Ratings

The Old Guard 2 hasn't made the strongest start. It's sitting at 5.1 out of 10 on IMDb, based on nearly 19,000 votes. That's a noticeable drop from the first film's score, and it's already raising eyebrows from long-time fans. Most of the user votes are in the 4-6 range, which points to a lukewarm reception. Only 5% gave it a 10, and just over 6% scored it a 1.

Over on Rotten Tomatoes, it's doing even worse. The Tomatometer shows just 23% from 81 critic reviews. That's not the kind of number you expect for a high-profile sequel. The audience score on PopcornMeter isn't helping either-it's at 36%, based on over a thousand ratings.

To be fair, the movie just dropped, and it always takes time for a full wave of reviews to roll in. Some early ratings might shift over the next few weeks as more feedback comes in and professional critics take a closer look. But for now, it's clear that part two hasn't hit the same mark as the original.

Both casual and critical reviewers on IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes seem especially bored by the first 30 minutes of the film. Many pointed out that it drags with unnecessary fluff that doesn't serve the story. There's already a wall of negative reviews, and with this kind of response so early, it's unlikely that the overall rating will shift much in the film's favor.

Part 4. FAQs of How to Watch The Old Guard

Conclusion on How to Watch The Old Guard

In this article, you discovered how to watch The Old Guard, and the answer is Netflix. It's the most obvious choice since legal ways are always better for streaming. We've also covered the plot, cast, and ratings of the first movie and its sequel. The second part hasn't hit the mark, mainly due to the storyline gaps and early fluff. Still, if you plan to binge both, Netflix has them ready to stream.