I struggled with a title for this blog because there is very little in the way of humor when it comes to The Last Samurai. Unless you find it hilarious that Tom Cruise is selected to be the lead role in this movie about a white guy with a checkered military past who lives among the Samurai… which I do. He just doesn’t seem to fit the part for me.
So I hate to give it away, but my primary beef with this movie, although it is mostly good, is that Tom Cruise is in it. I think I can say, without going into extensive detail about the guy, that he’s a little bit nutty. So really the whole time I’m watching this, the nuttiness kind of manifests itself, making what should be a pretty decent war movie some sort of joke. The whole time I’m watching Tom Cruise train to be a mighty samurai, the song from Mulan, “I’ll Make a Man Out of You!” kept coming to my mind.
So the movie starts out as Tom Cruise’s character, Algren, has come home from war. Flashbacks tell us that his experiences in war are something that he is grossly ashamed of. He did some pretty disgraceful stuff. He’s contracted by the Japanese government to come and work for the emperor, training the Japanese armies in the ways of Western warfare.
Algren’s first assignment is to take a group of newbie Japanese soldiers to war against the samurais, who the emperor wants to kill because like, they don’t conform to his dream of a new, modern Japan, and stuff. It is during this first battle that Algren is captured by the samurais and forced to spend the winter up in Samurai land. You can guess the rest. Tom Cruise becomes a Samurai, gets the girl, mends the error of his ways, has a change of heart, saves the world, whatever.
The movie is good, but a little messed up. There are about two lines of humor in it, one which I’ve included above, and the other one when the Japanese baby pulls at his ears and says something cute in Japanese. So basically, if you’re looking for funny, this ain’t it. But if you’re looking for something cool to watch that will shed a little light on the awesomeness of samurai warrior debauchery, then yeah, go ahead and watch it.
So it’s a good movie, but there is the Tom Cruise thing. There’s also the thing about how Tom Cruise’s character kills this dude in battle and then to make matters worse, steals off with his war victim’s woman. And his armor. Ouch. Oh, and also, there are a lot of people losing their heads in this movie, so if you’re weird about fake head rolling… this probably won’t be your first choice for your next movie night.
And that’s that. Steve gets to do the honors of reviewing Lean On Me next. So stay tuned. Morgan Freeman is off the heezie. And yes, I did just say that.
When Joey went to see The Last Samurai he told me about it. He and his brother walked into the theater. There was a whole row of Japanese people. His brother Ben leans in and says to him “Man, they are gonna be PISSED when they find out the last samurai is Tom Cruise.”
Bahahahaha! I am Brittany and I approve of this message.