Sake! Sake!! More SAKE!!

The cinematography is stunning throughout The Last Samurai, and Tom Cruise and Ken Watanabe are excellent, but after the extremely well-executed set-up involving the two men, the film becomes completely predictable, and not in a good way. It basically just drones on and on, devoid of any genuine energy, and by the time it finally wraps up (with a less-than satisfying conclusion), I too felt like yelling for sake (as Cruise's character had done earlier). For a film with so many swords, it has surprisingly very little edge.