Last Samurai

Year: 2003

Grade: C

Country: USA

Director: Zwick

Review

dances with samurai is what they should have called it. from what i remember this is pretty much the same outline as kevin costner’s dances with wolves, which came about 13 years earlier. tom cruise overextends himself here, but it doesn’t much matter because the direction and screenplay overshadow his shortcomings. both fall into triteness repeatedly enough to distract the viewer from cruise’s inability to fully capture his character. watanabe, who garnered an academy award nomination for his performance, is good, but not that good. the more films like this and gangs of new york that i watch, the more i realize how great hollywood is at making excellent productions. the set design, costumes, etc. were all excellent in this film; unfortunately that doesn’t make for a great film. hans zimmer’s score was strong enough relative to the rest of the film’s elements, but, again, did come off as trite from time to time. films like this are safe and meant to garner as many academy/golden globe awards as possible. unfortunately that means that we get to see basically the same picture over and over again with the occasional surprises from pictures like the lord of the rings.