Great, But Ending Just Let's It Down For Me

Rating: 8/10 (18 October 2017)

Continuing my plan was to every Tom Cruise movie in order, I come to The Last Samurai (2003)
I will be honest, I totally dismissed this upon release in 2003. I deemed it a sub par imitation of Dances With Wolves. I never cared to revisit it until today. I don't mind admitting I was totally wrong!! This movie is much more than that.
It is intelligently written, brilliantly acted and in this day and age, it's an uncommonly thoughtful epic. The full power of the movie is only lessened by an ending that seems like it goes totally against what the movie was building up to. I won't go into spoilers!! That is only a minor gripe though.
I can't believe I was so wrong about this movie. Once again Cruise proves he can act and Watanabe is a seriously powerful presence; looking at it now, you could see he had potential to become a bigger star. Tony Goldwyn (always an a$$hole) is as slimy and unlikeable as always, and Timothy Spall is decent in his small but important role, likewise Billy Connelly.
Truthfully there is greatness in The Last Samurai but it falls just short of being a great movie (again the ending) instead of a really good one.
The Last Samurai grossed $111 million at the domestic box office (to continue Cruises run over $100 million domestic grossers) ending the year the 20th highest grossing movie of 2003.