Twenty years after Tom Cruise flew into the danger zone, The Guardian does for the Coast Guard rescue swimmers what Top Gun did for Navy fighter pilots -- makes them oh so sexy.

The movie stars Ashton Kutcher (That '70s Show) as cocky and rebellious (yet emotionally scarred) Jake Fischer and Kevin Costner (Rumor Has It...) as his gruff mentor Ben Randall -- who of course has emotional scars of his own.

After a rescue mission gone wrong, legendary Coast Guard rescue swimmer Costner can't get back in the water without reliving the disastrous event. His commanding officer gives him the choice of a teaching position at the Coast Guard training school or civilian life.

Costner heads to Louisiana to take the young trainees, including lone wolf Jake Fischer, in hand. Costner and Kutcher's characters immediately clash. Costner believes Kutcher's only in it for the limelight, and Kutcher feels Costner is a bitter, dried up has-been.

Kutcher eventually proves himself and the two bond over past traumas. After graduating, Kutcher follows Costner back to his Alaskan base. Costner eventually decides to resign after he panics on a routine rescue mission. Before he can retire to take up fishing, though, he has to face one more rescue swim to possibly save his protégé.

I was pleasantly surprised by Kutcher's performance in this movie, although having low standards going in helps with that. He had great comic delivery and some really funny lines. However, he didn't surprise me when he overacted the emotional scenes. While Kutcher gave one of his best performances (although that's not saying much) Costner was only mediocre. He wasn't horrendous, but he overacted, which gave his character a stereotyped feel.

Part of the blame can be put squarely on the writing, though. Whenever Costner was too dramatic in scenes it was because the writing was so incredibly cheesy and cliché. Some of the lines had me laughing out loud while others had me cringing from how corny they were.

The plot and characters were also completely unoriginal. It didn't even have the good graces to be a moderate length appropriate for the type of movie it was -- by the end I was checking my watch every 10 minutes.

One of the most amazing aspects of the movie was it made me completely appreciate the heroics of the real Coast Guard rescue swimmers. Although Guardian completely glorifies them, it also does capture their daily lives of sacrifice, bravery and fear quite nicely.

The training and rescue scenes are really interesting to watch. It's amazing to see a helicopter motionless against gusts of winds as 20-foot waves swell in the background. It's the only reason to see the movie in the theaters because other than for a few visually awesome scenes, the movie can definitely wait for video.

While I was genuinely entertained -- it is a funny and touching movie -- the plot has essentially been around since at least the '80s. It's worth the couple dollars you'll save to wait the few extra months for it to come to video.

Grade B-