A Reasonable Adventure With Wonderful Photography and Arithmetic Problem

Rating: 7/10 (26 June 2004)

In 1876, the decadent and alcoholic Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) is a former officer from the American army, invited to train the troops of the Emperor of Japan to fight against the samurais. The Japanese troops are sent to the battle field before they are ready and Nathan is captured alive by the samurais. He stays with them in their village along a year and assimilates their culture and becomes friend of their leader Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe). On the next battle against the Emperor's army, Nathan fights in the samurais' side. This movie is a reasonable adventure, having a wonderful photography. The choice of Tom Cruise for the role of Nathan Algren does not fit well, since this character is supposed to be at least an older man. Further, with the advent of the use of computer for battle scenes, the exaggeration rules most of the present films. In this story, for example, before the last battle, Katsumoto tells Nathan that there are approximately five hundred samurais ready to fight. However, we see lots of them dying, and lots more continuing to fight, in a typical arithmetic problem. I suggest the directors of this type of movie to see the combat scene on the frozen lake filmed by Eisenstein in his 1938 `Aleksandr Nevsky' and learn how to choreograph a realistic battle scene. My vote is seven.
Title (Brazil): `O Último Samurai' (`The Last Samurai')