I wanted to put out a quick review for the last Tom Cruise product “The Last Samurai” which I watched last week on Per-Per-View.

The movie was gorgeous, fabulous costuming, amazing location shots, it looked very nice, once you got past that it was all very familiar.

Let me explain…

A recap of the plot: A Civil War hero named Nathan (Tom Cruise), is hired by the Japanese emperor to train h is royal troops to help get rid of the traditional Samuari because the emperor is fascinated by the west and wants to move his country more modern and the Sword totin’ Samaurai are so last week.

Nathan, one of the only men to survive Custer, is riddled with the mental scars of war and suffering flashbacks of his campaigns of killing entire indian villages goes to Japan and is a egotistic ass training the cowering young solider in modern warfare.

Stuff happens, he gets captured in battle by the Samurai who for some reason decide to make him a POW and pull him back to Samurai-town so the lead Samurai can study “thier enemy”.

OK, as to be expected the lead guy has a very hot daughter who has a kid and who’s husband (and the kid’s father) was killed in the last battle - by Nathan. And of course the kid falls for Nathan and hot widow Mom is bitter but of course does fall for him as well by the end.

Nathan then learns the samurai ways and fights at their side in the penultimate battle, which he’s the only survivor.

It’s all about him “Going native” as it were. learning the ways, and of course finding himself in the process.

Now, while watching it I could not help but notice it’s a Japanese Dances with Wolves (which we all know the plot of). But also definitely resembling some of Tom Selleck’s Mr Baseball - a movie about a washed up American ball player recruited to the Japanese leagues. His ego is worn down by a hard nosed Japanese coach who teaches him how to think japanese and improve his play and his life. The coach also has a hot daughter who falls for him and vice versa, and in the end finds himself and ends up a better man and player.

Sound familiar? The two movies mentioned above are better than this one. Go rent them instead, or better yet wait till they air on TNT or TBS again.