I finally saw The Last Samurai last night; it was alright… I avoided watching it for so long because it just seemed stupid that Tom Cruise would be in a movie about The Last Samurai (though I guess the main character in The Last of the Mohicans isn’t a Mohican…) Anyway, the movie had some interesting material to work with, the clash of the old way versus the new; the spiritual discipline of the samurai against the soulless brutality of machinery. If it just weren’t for the camera’s constant cuts to Cruise’s scraggly beard! I mean, at the end of the movie there is a confrontation between two Japanese men and it’s all emotional and stuff, and they kept cutting to Tom looking all teary and intense. WTF!?! He had nothing to do with the scene!! Oh well… In the movie’s favor, there IS a totally rad scene with ninjas and stuff and they are all like sword fighting the samurai and junk and then… oh yeah, Tom Cruise saves the day… lame.
totally loved that movie, but you are right.
The peaceable quiet serene life that was portrayed was good
and quite believable but the fact that Tom Cruise was in the middle of all that didn't really fit all that well.
And that horrible scraggly beard, I mean, come on.
To this day, my favorite movie of all time, A Few Good Men, was I believe his best performance ever. Ofcourse I have never seen Top Gun