The Guardian (**)

I'm enjoying the career renaissance that Kevin Costner is having right now, but I'm not too impressed with his latest flick. The Guardian is cookie-cutter filmmaking. Every scene is cribbed from some other, better, movie - the action sequences, the training sequences, the character's emotional breakdowns, the romances. You've seen it all before in films like Top Gun and An Officer and a Gentleman. But for some, this is probably the movie equivalent of comfort food. It's entertaining enough, though at 2 hrs and 20 minutes, it's a tad long. Ashton Kutcher isn't a good actor, but he does alright here. At times, the movie plays like a recruiting commercial for the Coast Guard, but if you're like me and don't really know too much about how the Coast Guard works, it can be pretty interesting.