We can all agree that Charlize Theron has taken over the mantle as Hollywood’s best action star. She is, of course, the best part about The Old Guard, Netflix’s new action film adapted from Greg Rucka’s comic book series. Theron stars as Andy, the leader of a small band of immortal warriors who have lived for centuries, conducting covert military ops missions around the world. Basically, they’re good-guy mercenaries with their own moral code and we are rooting for them.

Andy and her team are ambushed in a rescue mission gone wrong in South Sudan, and after magically recovering from their wounds, they vow to track down Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the man who betrayed them. However, their mission is complicated by the discovery of another immortal warrior, Nile (KiKi Layne), a U.S. Marine who was presumed to be killed in action; she’s rescued by Andy and a brief brawl ensues to stop the military from abducting Nile for medical testing.

The main villain is Steven Merrick (Harry Melling), a greedy CEO of a big pharmaceutical company. He’s exactly what you’d expect a grown-up Dudley Dursley (who was played by Melling) to be – a snivelling, bottom-line driven corporate exec that has become so ubiquitous these days. He’s a cheap copy of a Gordon Gekko, and the most intriguing part of his character is waiting for Andy to pummel him into dust.

The action sequences look good enough, but just about everything else feels flat. Props to director Gina Prince-Bythewood for creating something that feels so dissimilar to her previous projects (Love & Basketball remains a criminally underrated sports drama), but it doesn’t feel like she has a lot to work with. The Old Guard sets up a new villain and a potential sequel in its final moments, but its meditation on death and mortality take a firm back seat to lengthy action sequences and clunky dialogue. Andy is like a female Wolverine, except in Logan we had 20 years of X-Men films to build our relationship, while in The Old Guard it’s not always clear what keeps Andy going.

In the library of action films, The Old Guard doesn’t really excite and it’s definitely not memorable, but consider it a good-enough entry into Netflix’s ever-expanding library of films you can simply put on the background, or skip to the parts that interest you. It is, however, notable as a cultural touchstone, including the first big-budget (reported $70 million) comic book film to be directed by a black woman and also the first one to feature gay superpowered heroes.

The Old Guard gets two and a half stars out of four.