Absolutely Epic

Rating: 10/10 (9 December 2003)

I loved this movie. Usually, I'd walk out of a Tom Cruise film and say "oh, he was soooo cute!", but this time, I can say, with a completely clear and clean conscience that he was *amazing*. Absolutely incredible. The Last Samurai wasn't your typical "West meets East" movie. Nathan Algren doesn't try to "reform the savages" or Americanize the poor Japanese people. Instead, as would happen if any one stranger lands in a village, he changes. He comes to understand and respect their ways and if he doesn't necessarily become one of them, he does become a friend.
This is probably the only two-and-a-half hour film that I could imagine sitting through again. And again. And again.
The Last Samurai, in my opinion, is bigger than a "Tom Cruise movie". It rises above that stigma to become an epic tale that just happens to have Tom Cruise in it, doing an astounding job.