The Greatest Action Movie Hero Is A Woman

In ‘The Old Guard,’ Charlize Theron is back as an immortal killing machine. Yay!

The new Netflix superhero movie The Old Guard is a modestly-budgeted, action-packed star vehicle for the greatest working action hero, Charlize Theron. The Old Guard is based on a graphic novel about a team of immortals who have spent the last few centuries fighting the good fight.

These deathless warriors are led by ancient killing machine Andy, played with icy vulnerability by Theron. Andy is short for Andromache of Scythia, so you know she’s been around.

The movie’s plot is simple: An evil pharma CEO and morally-confused former CIA agent are hunting the immortals. Meanwhile, a U.S. soldier played by Kiki Layne gets her throat slashed in Afghanistan… and the wound heals. So Andy and her team scramble to find the new immortal before the bad guys do.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is also in the movie and I’m not 100% sure why, but he’s always great.

The Old Guard includes classic vampire movie tropes, like the person who never dies lamenting watching those he loved suffer and grow old. It also reminded me of the 1986 cult classic Highlander, about sword-wielding tough guys who live forever. unless decapitated. It co-stars Sean Connery as a Spaniard!

The movies feature a number of excellent close-quarter fight scenes and Theron is her usual formidable self. As an actor, she both graceful and savage. She looks like she has the physical power to break body parts.

Theron has starred in two of the best action movies of the century, both well-made, intelligent, and badass. First, 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road is a masterpiece. It took decades for director George Miller to return to the post-apocalyptic world he created in the 1980s and it was worth it: He delivers a brutal road trip from hell, starring Max and a truckful of women trying to escape a man’s world.

And at the center of this hurricane of fire and chrome is Imperato Furiosa, a road warrior with a robot arm played by Charlize Theron

Then there’s 2017’s Atomic Blonde, a criminally underappreciated spy thriller set in the ’80s. It didn’t fizzle at the box-office but it wasn’t enough of a hit to warrant a sequel or, frankly, praise. This movie features Theron in a number of vicious fight scenes that leave emotional bruises.

The Old Guard isn’t quite up to the standard of Mad Max: Fury Road or Atomic Blonde but I really loved it. Mostly because it exists to show off how fucking cool Charlize Theron is when she’s pretending to be an invulnerable world-weary gladiator with a battle-ax.

I watched Gerard Butler in Den Of Thieves a few nights ago via Netflix Party with my movie club. It’s a surprisingly competent dirty cops versus brilliant crew heist movie starring one of the last male action stars. But Butler, who is a helluva lot of fun as a growling meatball prone to violence who eats the donuts of dead men, is quickly becoming a parody of himself.

There aren’t that many action movie stars left these days. But none of them own as hard as Charlize Theron. She is the defining bare-knuckle box-office blockbuster hero of the era.

Yes, sure, Keanu Reeve’s John Wick is certainly worth mentioning although the sequels, while fun, don’t rise to the gonzo chaos of the original. I’m a fan of Daniel Craig’s sensitive, swole James Bond. I don’t think the Fast & Furious franchise is given enough credit. It’s one of the most successful movie series of all time and it’s about diversity and family. Vin Diesel has many more years worth of frowning and flexing left in him.

Remember the Bourne movies? I do. They were pretty good. Matt Damon was, inexplicably, a pretty fearsome action star, even if his Jason Bourne always looked like he was about to cry.

These are all excellent action movies starring some of the best in the genre. But Mad Max: Fury Road and Atomic Blonde are time capsule good. I’d even throw in The Old Guard to make it a trilogy. Future generations should know that these movies, and the main actor, were the best we could do (and our best was pretty awesome.)

Is it unnecessarily provocative to write that the greatest working action movie star is a woman? I know there are probably plenty of dudes who are going to disagree with me, and a few will let me know in the comments. Thanks in advance for reading, boys!

But I sincerely believe Charlize Theron is a legend. And as you can tell, I am a huge fan of action movies, even the bad ones.

I grew up loving Bruce Lee and Charlie Bronson and Chuck Norris. I know Jean-Claude Van Damme looks silly now but back then I thought he was the coolest kickboxer of all time.

Action movies are stories about men doing the right things the wrong way. In action movies, men defend the vulnerable. They help the weak. These movies are the only mass, secular moral instruction boys get. I mean, my father and uncles and priests and teachers taught me about good and evil. But Rambo was also my teacher and he made it clear the good guys don’t leave their friends behind in prison camps. Also: The U.S. government is probably lying to you.

Thankfully, action movies have matured The bloodied good guys aren’t less violent than Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando but they’re more conflicted about mayhem. They’re not as eager to hurt others. You have to really tick them off to set them off. And the moral messages are still there, especially in the colorful optimistic superhero genre where Captain America is a corny symbol of Boy Scout nobility.

But Theron brings an exhaustion to each action movie character she plays. As if she has to punch her way through a wall of men in every scene. It’s a unique quality for an action hero. She also has an impressively cold shark stare.

Charlie Theron won an Oscar in 2002 playing a serial killer in Monster. It was a performance by an actor with something to prove. And since winning America’s top acting award, Theron has also proven she can also beat the shit out of the big boys on the big screen.

The Old Guard is just one more example.