Well-made but takes itself too seriously

Rating: 6/10 (18 August 2006)

Tom Cruise plays Captain Algren, a drunk ex Indian-fighter in the US Army who goes to Japan to teach the Japanese army how to fight. But soon he is captured by the enemy Samurai and joins them. Ken Watanabe is Katsumoto the samurai chief, and is a major pain. He plays the part of NOBLE WARRIOR to the hilt and seems incapable of talking like a normal man - everything comes out as a proverb. And Watanabe looks about as Japanese as Dick Cheney.
Movie is well-made of course and has some great fight scenes but comes with subtitles and as usual, they are hard to read. And the Samurai are all portrayed as secular saints and you can't shake the feeling that we are getting a very one-sided view of things.
A pretty good movie but much too sentimental for my taste and with an ending that borders on mawkish.