Very well done, enjoyable despite echoing scenes and characters from other films

Rating: 8/10 (24 January 2004)

I really enjoyed this movie. It's one of Tom Cruise's best, my favorite since Magnolia and Rainman. Its original setting (for us in the USA, that is) makes me wonder more about the history of Japan, and how it changed from a rural to a modern industrial society.
I didn't quite get lost in it, hoping that it wouldn't end as I have done while seeing other epic films. At times, the story strains at my willingness to suspend my disbelief, but each time it backed off just before it "jumped the shark". I'm very curious to learn what Japanese audiences will think of it and several unrealistic scenes.
The actors complement each other and there are very few scenes where the camera lingers too long on them. Most of the time, I want to see and hear more from these characters.
But so many parts of it reminded me of other films, books, even TV shows. Can you say "derivative"? Maybe I'm just confused because I'm getting older but here's how I remember the story:
(a few spoilers ahead)
Our hero Lt. John Dunbar ("Dances with Wolves") / Capt. Nathan Algren goes west, accompanied by an irreverent companion who doesn't last long enough in the film. Rhett Butler ("Gone With the Wind") / Algren plans to get rich as a mercenary in the Civil War, paid by modern-thinking Japanese business interests ("Rising Sun"), to fight Indians / Japanese rebels. During a battle, Inman ("Cold Mountain") / Algren suffers multiple injuries that should have killed him, but keeps on going through the winter snow and is eventually nursed back to health by a woman.
As Blackthorne ("Shogun") / Anjin-san ("Shogun") / Algren recovers, he is held prisoner in a house with a Japanese family who thinks that he is a stinking unmannered barbarian. But Jack Elliot ("Mr. Baseball") / Algren learns to appreciate Japanese culture, as he wisecracks about guys in dresses ("Tootsie"). Then Danny Larusso ("Karate Kid") / Algren learns Asian fighting techniques and becomes an adviser to the honorable Indian / Samurai leader in a civil war in Japan, while having flashbacks to his Vietnam / Indian fighting days when he killed civilians ("Blue Thunder") alongside the arrogant Gen. Custer ("Little Big Man"). He fights against black-suited Ninjas (Tekken, the martial arts video game, and "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles").
Finally, in the climactic battle, William Wallace ("Braveheart") / Algren helps lead the Indians / Scottish / Samurai into battle against the U.S. Cavalry / English / Japanese army, against impossible odds, arrows raining down upon the bad guys. ("Lord of the Rings" and "Braveheart" again, probably a few dozen guys in costume and the rest added using computer effects.)
Other viewers can probably pick out even more films that "echo" or reverberate in this one. There is even an allusion to a movie that should be made one day; about the military advisers who are supposed to be non-combatants, sent by the USA to Vietnam and other locations around the world to put down the rebels.
Even while distracted by all these other movies, I really did enjoy the film, and I look forward to watching it again in a few years.
Steven