You want my honest opinion ok here it is.
The film sets out to be an epic tale of one mans redemption much like Dances with Wolves but where that movie succeeded this one failed and i'll tell you why, some major faults which spoiled this film for me and they were as follows.
The music score, the cinematography and camerawork and the script.
Lets start with the script, we first see Cruise battle the samurai at the beginning of the film and he somehow manages to fight in hand to hand combat and take out several of them yet just a little time after this when he has recovered from his battle wounds we see him fail miserably time and again against lesser opposition on the training field.
So what happened while he was recovering ? explain how he could take out so many samurai in hand to hand combat one minute yet become so useless after this, another failing of the script is its sentimental Hollywood approach to the Japanese samurai, it doesn't feel like the scriptwriters really care for these characters it instead feels like they are pulling at the audience strings with their caricatures ( the womans husband was killed by Cruise yet she falls for him because Cruise shows so much honour and dignity and her husband died a fine death, oh yeh i can buy that typical Hollywood b*******) or the leader of the samurai who has managed to lead his army in numerous battles to numerous victories ends up being lectured by Cruise ( somehow i think it would be the other way round )
The screenwriters have nicked so much material from Dances with Wolves including the ending but they have failed to give these characters a
3dimensionallity and instead they are all simply Hollywood caricatures of how americans think Japanese culture is like
( A kira Kurosawa would be turning in his grave if he saw this film as he truly made great samurai epics)
Lets also look at the music score, in order for a film to pull the viewer in and to make a lasting impression i truly believe you need a great music score, unfortunately Hans Zimmer who is usually a very reliable film composer was having a bad day and this music score sucks bigtime, too many strings and it doesn't draw you in and make you feel like you are watching something special on the screen, Zimmer's music for g ladiator or Thelma and Louise are great examples of how film music can aid the images onscreen and make your heart pound and your head feel like you are part of a journey, his music for The Last Samurai was poor and didnt engage you with the onscreen images.
Lastly lets look at the cinematography and camerawork, i felt like i was watching a film which had been composed for 1.78:1 widescreen televisions and not the scope 2.35:1 it seemed to be filmed in, many many scenes were framed in a 1.78:1 ratio and the camerwork felt too static and unengaging, involving camerawork coupled with good cinematography and a fantastic music score can pull you into a film and as long as you at least have those elements you can sometimes gloss over faults within a script, unfortunately this film failed on all counts and indeed Cruise seemed just a little miscast but he pulled it off ok in the end and i have a lot of time for Cruise as an actor but this film was not the epic it should have been.
In many ways this film reminded me of The Wind And The Lion, now that film had great cinematography and direction and an amazing music score, i would have loved to have seen what John Milius could have done with the Last Samurai and Jerry Goldsmith composing the music
Dances With Wolves was obviously watched many times by the film's scriptwriters the trouble is Dances had great 2.35:1 cinematography, a damn fine music score and great direction and characters who didn't feel like caricatures, and indeed it was an epic, this film simply failed to live up to my high expectations, i have seen far too many real epic's to be impressed by something like this.
Ok now having said all that i would still award the film 6 out of 10 points if i was marking it because the battle scene when they charge with their horses towards the enemy was very well done and had some exciting moments and good slow-mo photography ( one of the few instances where the camerawork could be considered great ) this film overall though was a letdown and failed to live up to the hype because of the aforementioned problems.
I thought the picture was very good but the audio lacked some surround sound sparkle, some detail seemed lost which i think DTS would have maybe cured, Warner's don't do DTS so no chance of that, overall though i'd rate the sound very high it just lacked the ultimate finesse the very best soundtracks have.
I have had to space g ladiator and A kira out as for some reason they are becoming clickable links in my post and will send people to an ad site, any way of stopping this happening ?