The Old Guard Review: 5 Ups & 5 Downs

3. The Exposition-Heavy Script

The Old Guard is perfect proof that it doesn't always pay to have the creator of an IP adapt their own work, as Greg Rucka's script for this movie is an excessively talkative, exposition-heavy mess.

It certainly has a firm handle on its characters and its world, but continuously betrays the "show, don't tell" principle by having so much crucial information unveiled in boring, shot-reverse-shot dialogues.

Rucka understandably has a lot to establish in the early going, but rather than find a creative way to organically convey this information to the viewer, he settles for having characters unnaturally rip through verbose, stilted monologues about their histories.

Though the talented ensemble certainly does their best to mitigate this, there's no denying that most of the movie's problems are a result of its mediocre script.