I liked this movie a lot more than I thought I would. Although The Last Samurai seems like it’s just Dances with Wolves starring Tom Cruise, it actually somewhat breaks free from other “white savior” movie tropes such as those found in avatar. The film follows an American army captain named Nathan who is hired to train a newly formed Japanese army to combat the samurai during the Meiji restoration. However, over time he starts to sympathize with the samurai, and eventually joins them.

For the most part the acting in this movie is fine, there’s really nothing particularly standout or amazing, but it’s acceptable. The main things that stand out in this movie is the armor, weapons, and combat overall. The combat in particular at times, is surprisingly good, and at other times ridiculous. There are some training scenes, where they use realistic parries and winds, deflecting the opponents blades, rather than blocking them. With a katana, this is very important, as one can damage or even break a katana very easily by simply blocking using brute force. The movie gets that right, and that should be commended. However, they also show katanas cutting through lacquered plates, and fire arrows, both of which are impossible.

The main thing that’s inaccurate about this movie, in a historical sense, is that it shows the samurai as being stark traditionalists. Refusing to use firearms or any modern weapons, and instead opting to arm themselves with only swords and bows. It also implies that’s the samurai rebelled for altruistic reasons, wanting Japan to remain more conservative and grounded in tradition. In reality, the samurai of the satsuma rebellion did rebel using firearms, and the reason they rebelled was because they were losing privileges they traditionally had that were not present in western societies. However, this change is understandable for dramatic effect.

The script is overall fairly predictable, but it does break free of “white savior” tropes in one interesting way. Unlike a movie like Avatar, Nathan knows the samurai cause is a lost one from the beginning, this makes his decision to fight and die with them much more powerful and dramatic. Sadly, the movie figuratively shoots itself in the foot a scene later. The last samurai spends a lot of it’s time establishing that the samurai will die down to the last man, and they even have Nathan get shot three times with a Gatling gun. However, in literally the next scene he is fine, and instead presenting a sword to the emperor. By establishing that a main character will die throughout your movie, and then having said main character survive, you don’t subvert expectations, you undermine your entire film.

Despite my thought about the ending, I liked the Last Samurai. It’s portrayal of the Meiji restoration isn’t egregious, and the combat is fun to watch. I would recommend it for those looking for a fun, dumb, sword fighting flick