Finally: A Good Movie

After a year and a half, nearly, of mediocre stuff in the theaters--much of which didn't even catch my attention on the Blockbuster shelf--I have finally seen a good movie.

All right, Pirates II was pretty good. X-3 was okay. Neither of them quite lived up to the earlier series installments. I liked Elizabethtown; still haven't seen Cars, much to my chagrin. Failure to Launch and Queen Latifah's Last Holiday were both enjoyable chick-relaxation watches, as was The Lake House, once I managed to understand what was going on in that story.

Overall, though, Hollywood has had such a lame stretch that I've seen only maybe five movies in the theater since June of 2005. If that.

Saturday night, I bottled up my old fears of water and saw The Guardian.

Ashton Kutcher, who usually annoys me endlessly, showed a strength to his acting ability that I've never seen out of him before. Maybe I've watched the wrong movies; Newlyweds just didn't thrill me (actually, I thought it was boring, a bit disgusting and rather less than believable), and of course he played an idiot in Cheaper by the Dozen. This time he actually had a character, and he made something of it.

Kevin Costner did credit to the role of the weathered, tough-but-good, legendary-in-life Senior Chief. He played a man who had both great strengths and weaknesses; a man who had already learned to maximize his gifts and was now learning to minimize weakness and make good on mistakes, all the while dealing with loss.

The story brought out themes of honor, hope, greatness with humility, and the value of life... and besides that, it was just a good story. Well worth the watching.