A popcorn flick like this does best when it sticks to shallow waters.
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09/29/06
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The Guardian (2006)
37
%
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Reviews Counted:142
Fresh:52
Rotten:90
Average Rating:5.2/10
Consensus: The Coast Guard gets its chance for a heroic movie tribute, but The Guardian does it no justice, borrowing cliche after cliche from other (and better) military branch movies.
Theatrical Release:2006-Fall
Box Office: $54,983,983
Synopsis: Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher team up in this torch-passing tale of the brave men and women in the Navy Coastguard elite rescue diver unit. A catastrophic rescue mission leaves him wounded after... [More]
Starring: Kevin Costner, Ashton Kutcher, Clancy Brown, Sela Ward
Director: Andrew Davis
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Reviews for The Guardian
It's all been done before, but Costner and Kutcher make this worth watching again.
09/29/06
A decade after the commercial and critical flop of Waterworld nearly drowned his career, Kevin Costner is back to sea in The Guardian, and this time his dignity remains afloat.
09/29/06
It bears a striking resemblance to An Officer and a Gentleman, which is now nearly a quarter-century old. But the new movie's visuals and direction give it an edgier, 21st-century vibe.
09/29/06
Running on for a butt-numbing two-and-a-half hours, The Guardian overstays whatever forgiving nature one is willing to extend.
09/29/06
Entertaining enough but strictly in a wait-for-cable way.
09/29/06
Even with some well-staged rescue sequences, the result is a bloated, waterlogged affair.
09/29/06
Despite the punishing length and fidelity to formula, The Guardian isn't a disaster and is often quite watchable.
09/29/06
Unless you’re in the Coast Guard, or related to someone who is, there’s really not much reason to see this. You already have.
09/29/06
The first hour of The Guardian gives every indication that some sort of contemporary Greek tragedy is about to be played out. And then the film goes right off the rails.
09/29/06
Valor does emerge in The Guardian, but often is eclipsed by an effects-driven star vehicle.
09/29/06
Top CriticThe best way I can describe The Guardian is the Coast Guard version of An Officer and a Gentleman, although I doubt this film will be remembered as fondly.
09/29/06
Both veteran director Andrew Davis and writer Ron L. Brinkerhoff know a cliché when they see one... so they dutifully point them out to us in this predictable tale of a much-decorated rescue swimmer passing the torch to a promising new recruit.
09/29/06
It's just plain too long. About an hour and a half into it, I began to wonder how it would end, but about two hours into it, I began to wonder when it would end.
09/29/06
While it's not completely waterlogged, The Guardian is more than a bit soggy. It begins efficiently familiar and ends with a series of splashes that seem like desperate dogpaddling.
09/29/06
Costner and Kutcher spark some real chemistry in their scenes together, but The Guardian takes a weird and unwelcome turn in its final 45 minutes and goes off the deep end.
09/29/06
Top CriticThe television ad spots and theatrical trailers for The Guardian apparently tell most, if not all, of the film's story in just a minute or two.
09/29/06
The Guardian accomplishes what it sets out to do with a reasonable amount of skill, and there's something undeniably admirable about watching men and women push themselves to the limit for only one purpose: to save other people's lives.
09/29/06
Top CriticIt's a pleasure to watch Costner. He continues to operate in a comfort zone where aging and foxiness co-exist. (Harrison Ford, take note.)
09/29/06
The Guardian isn't the worst aqua-themed movie of Kevin Costner's career. Not with Waterworld in his rearview mirror.
09/29/06
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