The Last Samurai

Tom Cruise tries hard, as a disillusioned American veteran of the Indian wars who is hired to help train Japan's emerging 19th Century army, but somehow he always seems slightly out of place. It may just be that he doesn't fare well in movies set before his time. The picture itself, though faintly ridiculous on the face of it, is hard to dismiss entirely. It is earnest (dare I say nearly humorless?) to a fault, handsomely mounted (though some of the vistas look like painted backdrops--even if they aren't), and clearly has something on its mind, though exactly what is hard to say. In any event, Cruise's character learns to embrace the Samurai way... or at least the Cinemascope version of it and finds peace at last through the senseless self destruction of many noble warriors. Go figure.