Of the three movies we watched over the last few days this was definitely the best out of the three, though still doesn’t make the “we should own this one” cut.

Costner and Kutcher do well on screen together – and I imagine we’ll see the two of them paired up again for something else in the future?

My problem with the movie was it’s “typical” plot. There were no wrenches thrown in to get us great-plot-lovers excited about what COULD happen next. The typical “teacher/student relationship”, the “military training is the worst-thing-ever”, and even the “one branch of military vs. another branch of military in a bar” plot-pieces were all there and maintained their “typical” attributes.

Here’s where you should stop reading if you haven’t watched and will eventually…

The ending, too, was just… too… typical.

Former student with former teacher/mentor’s life in his hand(s) and cable-snaps. Ugh. Seen it a million times before – and I’ve personally solved each case of this happening within the first few minutes of watching such a scene take place. I AM glad that they chose the ending scene over the “alternate” included with the DVD.

Next rental is slated to be “Bourne Supremacy Ultimatum” (thanks, Allison!) – I’ll do my best to begin viewing without the expectations that I naturally have from watching and then owning the first two AMAZING films!

Another movie on my radar for the past couple of years was “Lady in the Water” and when browsing the huge amount of videos at our public library I found it! It was a no-brainer check-out and last night Jess and I sat down to watch it with Scott and Katie who have been visiting us this week.

Scott said it best about halfway through the movie, “I really WANT to like this movie!” – and each of us agreed that it was yet another huge let-down.

M. Night Shyamalan hasn’t NOT impressed me before this movie – with “The Village” and “Signs” both having high-honors in our DVD-collection.

“Lady in the Water”, however seemed to be filled with poor-acting, home-grown special-effects, and an overall theme of mediocrity. When the movie finished, the four of us looked at each other wishing that we could get back the last 2-hours of our lives.

Another issue I had was that this movie seemed very “M. Night-heavy”. He does more acting in this film than in all the others combined – I expected his usual cameo-appearance and instead he took on the role of one of the main-actors.

Again – this one is worth skipping!

Across the Universe was one of those movies that I was super-excited about being able to rent when it became available. We were able to get it from Blockbuster the other night and Jess and I watched it with Scott late on Tuesday night.

I wasn’t impressed.

Don’t confuse me here – the music is amazing – the Beatles-only Soundtrack would be a great thing to own, but the movie-itself didn’t invoke any positive-thoughts. It’s dark/mysterious and happens to be at the top of most numerous lists of ‘movies to watch while you’re stoned’ – as found out through some simple Googling.

There were some neat visual-elements scattered throughout, but overall it was a bust.

Save your $4 rental fee and rent something else if you have the option.