‘The Old Guard’ is a summertime popcorn flick for the small screen

Posted on July 24, 2020

By MARK VIOLA

The 2020 summer blockbuster season officially ends this weekend, with not a single film released to theaters due to the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. And, it’s looking increasingly likely that it will be some time before movie theaters open again.

Some are arguing that many of the big-budget films originally scheduled for a theatrical release, such as Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” and “Wonder Woman 1984” should be released online instead. I hate talking in absolutes, but I cannot see a situation in which I will ever support such a scenario. I love going to the movies, as I’ve mentioned multiple times before, and it’s one of the biggest things I miss from the pre-COVID world.

That being said, a number of the streaming services — Netflix especially — are putting serious money into producing high-quality summer blockbuster-type movies for home-video consumption. According to a recent report in Business Insider, Netflix just greenlit “Gray Man,” an action film starring Chris Evans (“Captain America”) and Ryan Gosling (“Blade Runner 2049”) from directors Joe and Anthony Russo (“Avengers: Endgame”) with a budget between $160 million and $200 million.

Earlier this summer, we got “Extraction,” starring Chris Hemsworth (“Thor”), and now we have the ensemble action film “The Old Guard” headlined by Charlize Theron (“Mad Max: Fury Road”) as the leader of a group of immortal warriors trying to do good in the world.

The movie, featuring a fantasy-tinged story and plenty of explosions and shootouts, is exactly the kind of popcorn flick we’re used to getting on the big screen each summer. While seeing it on my television instead of a movie theater does detract some of the enjoyment (at least for me), but sadly I’m getting use to it (although I still don’t like it).

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