I watched The Last Samurai with Tom Cruise. It was not as good as I was expecting. The lead character's sappy, "I have done bad things but I am good person" image is tired. There is nothing original about the character. This movie would have worked much better without the Tom Cruise character. Ken Watanabe could have pulled this off entirely by himself. The story of the last samurai fighting for what he believes is right in face of ever-advancing westernization is a very compelling story. The Cruise character is putting Hollywood formula storytelling into an otherwise decent story. The addition of the liberal killer just takes away from a visually beautiful film. Without Tom Cruise's character, this movie is an 8 or 9... with the character, it should have been renamed to "The Last Lame Movie Tom Cruise Made."

RATING 6 out of 10

- posted by Chris @ 11:15 PM