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The Last Samurai
7 of 10
If you ever wanted to understand the difference between an Oscar level film and a routine formula action flick posing as one just sit down and watch Dances With Wolves and then The Last Samurai. This is not a knock on TLS for being LIKE DWW in terms of premise. It just so happens that the similarity clearly shows how something can be done well or done clumsily. Samurai is clumsy formula at its worst, wasting an Oscar-level premise on an empty script that fails to follow any of its deeper paths to greatness.
While I knocked Gladiator as being non-Oscar caliber (and I still do), it certainly was much more worth of that praise than this film.
TLS constantly falls back on the very worst in direction and script cliches, for example two DIFFERENT inner monologues (just who's telling us this story anyway?) are used in some bastardization between DWW and Road Warrior, yet so sparingly that it fails to be established as a consistent convention (just think about the reporting/telegraphy station gimmick at the end of Gangs of New York for "not established).
I also didn't appreciate the use of flashbacks to explain why this already established broken, drunken warrior would be crying out for saki. I guess the director thinks none of us would get it.
The only way I can explain some of the better reviews this film is getting is that you can make up for a lot in the last act and that is one of the film's greatest strengths...very well staged battle sequences. There is nothing like seeing hundreds, maybe thousands, of real extras well choreographed. The final battle did have some staging that is reminiscent of Kurosawa (at least half a point came strictly for that alone)...but the comparisons end there.
Not a bad film but definitely a letdown as an Oscar contender. Nowhere near the same league as the film from a similar genre, Master and Commander.
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