Last night I watched "The Last Samurai." TLS had one fatal flaw: Tom Cruise. But I'll continue to make comments about the movie regardless.

General observation: I don't recall ever seeing so many guys losing their heads with no girl in sight. It was heartening.

Tom Cruise is the sole survivor of an attack of 500 men. The mathematical odds of this (according to a person who actually understands a substantial part of mathematics) is 1 in 273390600000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000.

This, of course, leaves out the human factor (that one white face in an asian country is much more likely to be picked out as a target than the 499 asians alongside of him and that out of white faces, Tom Cruise is even more likely to be picked out as a target of malice.) Tom Cruise is a dream in this movie. He certainly couldn't actually be alive.

TLS is extremely beautiful in scenery and has some good battle scenes. That being said, it's an extremely confused movie as befitting a film whose director chose Tom Cruise to be the lead role. For instance, pretty much every possible ethnic group besides caucasians are singled out as being nobler than the terrible white man. Yet at the same time, the only white man is the only survivor of the great battle. If Tom Cruise was John Wayne (obviously, he isn't. I apologize to John Wayne's descendants for even making the comparison), this would be considered to be another example of the white man trying to show himself as superior to other races. But since it's Tom Cruise and since the movie makes it plain that whites, and in particular Americans, are not pure and have bad karma, this seems an acceptable form of Hollywood behavior (it was really quite touching how the movie portrayed swords and war as pure and pristine while guns and war were terrible and defiling).

But that being said, the movie was actually highly visually entertaining. I did feel that it was a waste to get so many thousands of men killed in a film without making one of them TC. When will a director come along who is willing to do the right thing?

James Cameron killed off Leonardo Dicaprio in "Titanic" (if he would have killed off Kate Winslet, I wouldn't have sworn to never watch the movie). Leo was even killed off in the end of "The Quick and the Dead." Other notable wimpy box office stars have been commendably killed off in flicks as well. But TC must have a morbid fear of dying and write it into his contracts or something. It's time for Directors and Producers to band together and tell TC that he's mortal. put it into the script and play "taps" for him.