So while Gina Prince-Bythewood, previously best known for the sublimely romantic Love & Basketball and Beyond the Lights, might not seem like the first choice for a comic-book movie about a group of immortal superheroes who’ve been fighting evil for centuries, just a few minutes into The Old Guard you realize what an inspired choice she turns out to be.

And the scene that initially does it — I am not making this up — involves Charlize Theron guessing the provenance of a mysterious piece of baklava.

But right now, she sits with her small team of fellow ancient warriors (the other three have been around for merely hundreds of years) and plays a parlor game: They give her a piece of baklava; she has to use her eternity of experience to figure out where it’s from.

For a minute or so, nothing else matters in the world other than Charlize Theron and that piece of baklava.

Unlike the standard superhero team, the Old Guard themselves seem less like a collection of traits and more like real people.

That kind of intimacy obviously comes in handy when you’re telling a love story, but when it’s transferred to the realm of comic books and superheroes, a different kind of alchemy occurs: A supernatural action fantasy starts to feel heartbreakingly real.

Speaking of which: In ordinary times, The Old Guard (which is produced by Netflix, though a theatrical release was always planned) would have opened in a crowded marketplace that had already seen titles like Wonder Woman 1984, Black Widow, a ninth Fast & Furious entry (also co-starring Theron), and The New Mutants.