Review of The Guardian (2006) by Dawdlingpoet — 28 Nov 2021

I found this movie to be slower than I had hoped and there isn't as much at sea action rescue scenes in it either, which was disappointing and it reminded me, story wise, quite alot of Police Academy, only without the comedy. Kevin Costner is the ratty senior instructor and Ashton as the self assured, ever so slightly(!) egocentric student, who shows an interest in the local females, so in that way its all rather too predictable and too cheesy with the whole 'your better than this, I can see it, do yourself and your team proud my son' type schpiel.

To me, it was too macho in one sense and too cheesy/'schmaltzy' in another and either way, I didn't exactly feel enamoured by it at all.

I was attracted to it by the big name stars (Ashton Kutcher, Kevn Costner and Neal McDonough, who can also be seen as Edie's partner in Desperate Housewives and who also appeared in what I thought was a very good US crime drama series called Boomtown which was sadly cancelled mid way into its second season, check it out, I thought that was a great show... but anyway...) but I just felt that the story, behind it all, was one that had been done too many times before, 'ala' Top Gun or, as I say, Police Academy, minus the comedy.

I would also have to disagree with the media quotes on the official DVD box, the Sunday Mirror may call it 'action-packed entertainment' but the real action scenes are pretty few and far between, at the start and fairly close to the end of the movie and by the time they appear near the end, I had really lost interest in the movie, which I felt dragged on too much at over two hours long as well. Also the Sunday Telegraph apparently claimed '...its (also) rather moving and unusual' well, I would challenge that too, quite whats so unusual about it, im not so sure. This is one time where you have to realise, such quotes from the press aren't always justified or particularly useful, if you know what I mean.

As I say, this is in a sense quite a macho film, so I think some men might quite enjoy it, perhaps it is more for men than women but even so, I still found the story flawed and I don't think being male would change my mind about that. I thought it was somewhat confusing, with the elements about Bens ex and Jake dating a local girl next to the scenes of the students hard at work training to be 'tough mean machines' and all of that.

As a viewer, you may feel sorry for both of the main characters at certain points but I still felt overall uninterested, certainly by the time it was half way through the movie.

Perhaps im not the best person to review it, I like to think im open minded and I like most types of movie but this one really, overall, lost my interest before the first hour was up, though I did watch it right through to the end. Its quite a lengthy movie at over two hours too, it did seem to go on rather too long, with not enough action in the middle part and generally a plot that I felt was less than new.

It has a good cast but otherwise I felt it was all rather disappointing and even pretty depressing and so no, I wouldn't recommend it.