A Fantastic Movie

Rating: 10/10 (20 August 2005)

When I heard Tom Cruise was going to be in a movie about Samurai warriors, I was a little (read: very) skeptical about how the movie would turn out. I was ready to dismiss the film as another of Tom Cruise's hit-or-miss movies...then I sat down and actually watched it.
I could go on for ages about the phenomenal acting and cinematography, but perhaps my favorite thing about the film were the subtleties...the things that you catch in a movie after seeing it a second or third time. Some of the most minute gestures--Hatsumoto's nods of respect to Nathan, the way that Ujio adjusts Nathan's armor to show his approval, etc.---were how the characters showed their emotions to one another, which I thought were better than wasting dialogue trying to explain their feelings.
My only problem was that the movie had the unfortunate occurrence of being released the same time as the last of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so the movie wasn't nominated for as many Oscars as I feel it should have been.