Beautiful and Tragic

Rating: 9/10 (15 April 2006)

Spoilers throughout This is a hard movie for me to review. It has everything a great movie should have, and I really can't think of a thing I would change. The acting is terrific, and I'm not just talking Tom Cruise, whom we've come to expect perfection from. The supporting cast was spot on for everything, even down to the extras. The cinematography is almost legendary, with the wonderful sweeping vistas of the Japanese countryside, to the gritty, closed-in streets of Tokyo. The musical score evokes feelings within the viewer without being overwhelming. Finally, the script is beautifully written.
Oh, yeah, the nasty Colonel Bagley (Tony Goldwyn) gets it in the end, and I SO needed that to happen! Bottom line here is that, even though you know what's going to happen, the real brilliance of the movie is the journey there.
Usually, I would be giving a movie like this a 10, but somehow, I can't. After watching this movie, I felt like they took 130 minutes to make me start to care about these characters, to become involved with their lives, and then the last 20 minutes, you see how they are killed, even if they do die bravely.