The Last Samurai Movie Review

Rating: **** (out of four)

I’m going to start off by saying that this is one of my favorite movies. Tom Cruise gave an excellent performance as did Ken Watanabe who played the leader of the Samurai. Tom Cruise played the role of Captain Nathan Algren who was a hero of the Civil War and Indian Wars. Early on he is recruited by the Japanese to help train their army to fight against the Samurai. He is captured by the Samurai in their first skirmish and begins to learn more of their ways. Soon his life becomes interwoven with their own and we get to learn about the Samurai ways and understand their story and perspectives.

I think that even though this basic plotline has been done before that the movie is very powerful and worth watching. The directing is top notch and many of the scenes are rich and beautiful. The combat scenes seemed well filmed and believable to me as well. The shots of the village were so beautiful that throughout the movie I wished I was actually there.

Katsumoto is a very interesting character as well. I wish the movie had actually expanded on him more and revealed more about him. Along with that I wanted to know more about the Samurai ways all of their various teachings. I really liked too how the Samurai were compared to the Native Americans. It is a subtle reference but I think including Nathan’s experiences with the Native Americans was a nice touch. I wanted to know more about that too.

The main struggle in the movie is the new ways, mainly Westernization, versus those who would preserve the ancient culture, which is what the Samurai defended. If you find any of this remotely interesting, or even just like some great sword battling scenes, I highly recommend checking out this movie. Take care and enjoy!
-mike