OOOOOOOH! The film The Guardian is on TV right now! This is – far and away – the worst movie ever made by man.
If you asked someone, “What is the worst movie ever made?” most people would say Battlefield Earth or Plan 9 from Outerspace, but the truth is, the worst movie ever made by mankind is this little gem The Guardian.
Let me break it down for you.
Start with: it stars Kevin Costner AND Ashton Kutcher.
Yeah, that’s right.
And! It is a movie about US Coast Guard Rescue Divers (the guys that jump out of helicopters to save your dumb ass after you somehow manage to sink your yacht). And I would like to take a moment here to say: I mean no disrespect to those of you readers who actually
are US Coast Guard Rescue Divers - may the lord bless and keep you – you do good work and you deserved a movie better than this one.
So beyond the problem of the casting, this is a movie with a whole lot of “acting” in it. What Hollywood commentators sometimes call “Capital A Acting”. What does that mean? Go watch any movie where Leonardo DiCaprio plays a character whose wife is dead (this is basically every movie that has made since Catch Me if You Can [with the exception of The Departed, but that still counts, see below]) and at some point he will have a “breakdown” and squint his eyes closed tightly and raise one (or both) of his clenched fists to his face (mouth or forehead) and as you are watching this moment unfold, part of your brain will go, “Wow! This MUST be good acting because I can totally SEE how much work and practice Leo put into this.” When you are watching an actor and all you can see is the actor rehearsing the scene in front of the mirror in his Malibu beach house because of how important a scene it is for the character, THAT is Capital A Acting. Also see: Keanu Reeves’ entire filmograpgy (“I AM AN F-B-I AGENT!!!”), everything Ethan Hawke has ever touched.
Basically the problem here is self-important earnestness. That is the problem with Capital A Acting and it is also the problem with this movie The Guardian. This movie is SO self important! In the opening scene, as Kevin Costner is rescuing a stranded boater who is clinging to debris, he actually yells at the man (as they are in the water and the waves are attacking then) “Stay with your flotation!”
After this movie came out (yeah, I saw it in the theater), I spent a month saying to people, “Stay with your flotation!” No one ever seemed to heed my advice, though my advice was never actually applicable.
What The Guardian is, is an entirely Republican movie. It makes a big deal about honoring these people who serve their country and others, but in the process of doing so, it boils their commitment and sacrifice down to some kind of un-nuanced cartoon. It self-righteously applauds the quality of its actors’ performances despite the fact that the quality is simply not there, and it doesn’t ask us to care about any of it, it simply expects us to. I don’t tear up when I watch this movie, even when the score tells me that I am supposed to.
It is simply awful. It is an awful, awful film of the first magnitude.
It is terrible.
It is … the worst film ever made by mankind.
You should totally watch it next time it is on!
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