Terrific but long

Rating: 8/10 (16 November 2004)

Here is a film that looks very good with its costumes, art direction, set design and cinematography, has some terrific performances, a beautiful score and a fine direction by Edward Zwick ('Glory', 'Legends of the Fall') and unfortunately an ending that could spoil things for a lot of people. If you forget the ending 'The Last Samurai' is a very good movie.
In short: Captain Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) becomes a military adviser for Japanese soldiers to defeat some Samurai leftovers. He is captured by the Samurai and starts respecting these real warriors. He becomes a Samurai as well, sort of, and helps the Samurai for their next battle against the Japanese soldiers. Of course there is a women to make things a little more interesting.
Although the film is an action adventure it is not really about the action, which is its strength and its weakness. The film is more about honor and such things if you look at the story, but besides that it is all about the things I mentioned above; art direction, set design, costumes, cinematography. Although it is great too look at the entire time, even during the final sequences, the film is too long. It seems nobody wanted to erase some of the beautiful images. But when the action arrives, it is very well done. You can see Cruise trained for a long time for these scenes. Although it is a little too long and has an ending that is instantly forgettable, I enjoyed 'The Last Samurai' more than I expected.