By Woodrow J. Hinton

Tom Cruise is a boozy Civil War veteran who becomes a samurai in the period drama The Last Samurai.

Leading man, veteran smart aleck and All-American poster boy, Tom Cruise staggers through the opening moments of the 19th-century epic, The Last Samurai, drunk, disheveled and bitter, which screams his intention to be taken seriously. Cruise sports shaggy brown hair and a scraggly beard as Nathan Algren, a boozy Civil War veteran who accepts a large payoff to go to Japan and instruct the Emperor's army on modern American warfare and weaponry. They need him to lead a fight against a band of rebellious samurai commanded by the brilliant warrior Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe).

Cruise is worn, sweaty and flushed, so much so that you momentarily forget his trademark sass, womanizing gaze and foxy grin -- attributes that have boosted his performances throughout his career, from Risky Business to Jerry Maguire. Cruise performs earnestly as Algren. Clearly, he's aware of the gargantuan effort behind The Last Samurai and his need to play a distinct character instead of a loose extension of his wisecracking persona. Cruise fails to make Algren a real, separate, true 19th-century man, but director/co-writer Ed Zwick deserves equal blame.

No expense was spared producing The Last Samurai. Then again, a lack of money is seldom the problem with Hollywood prestige movies. Zwick, writing the story with his former partner on the TV dramas Once and Again and thirtysomething, Marshall Herskovitz and Gladiator screenwriter John Logan, unloads by-the-numbers storytelling, complete with expected sacrifices, Algren's inevitable change of conscience regarding his samurai enemy and the inevitable climactic battle. Amid the period opulence, spectacular mountain scenery and elaborate fighting, not one original idea stands out.

At the film's beginning, Algren is the clichéd ugly American who looks down on customs and people he does not understand. Captured by his samurai opponents, he watches a defeated general perform the act of seppuku in horror. Yet, in short order, Algren will steadily turn, acquire and embrace the methods and philosophy of his Japanese enemies. True to the surface level spirit of the film, Algren's transformation is more about his appearance than his heart. He removes his soiled cavalry jacket and pants and replaces them with a kimono and sash. He learns to speak Japanese and eat Japanese food.

Algren's captors also change their opinion about him. The young son of a samurai Algren killed in battle gives him a gift. The widow now flirts with him, eventually dressing him in the armor of her slain husband. Of course, this happens after Algren has shaved his unkempt beard and returned to his trademark boyish looks. There is no denying the magnetism of Cruise on pretty young women, even in 1878 Japan.

Midway into the film, Algren has become the best of both worlds, a Westerner willing to help his female host with household chores, something a Japanese man would never do, as well as someone suddenly engaged by Japanese customs. Zwick has created the most politically correct, 19th-century man you'll ever meet. But the kinder, wiser Algren has half the spark of the drunkard at the beginning of the film.

In a failed effort to match The Last Samurai's bigness, Zwick makes every drama operatic and over-the-top. Cruise claims the lion's share of operatic moments, a clumsy move on his part.

There are flashbacks to his days fighting Indians alongside General Custer. They are frequent, torturous and usually involve the slaughter of women and children. Algren yells during these nightmares, and the scenes are melodramatic, comical, flamboyant meltdowns.

"Sake! Sake!" Algren screams. He appears to be suffering from alcohol withdrawal, but Cruise's performance is too campy for it to matter.

The best scene in the movie is when Algren and Katsumoto meet face-to-face for the first time and speak. The scene dazzles, thanks mostly to Cruise's co-star Watanabe, who overwhelms the famous leading man with his piercing stare and commanding presence, made perfectly frightening with his bald head and trimmed goatee.

Watanabe, giving a blustery, rock solid performance that pays rightful homage to the great Japanese samurai actor Toshiro Mifune, matches perfectly with The Last Samurai. It's impossible to imagine someone else in the movie; something that cannot be said for Cruise.

The Last Samurai is more beautiful than a predictable movie has the right to be. The mountain landscapes and wooded paths are striking. Mount Shosha rises in the backdrop of the samurai village. A key battle takes place in a mist and fog-enshrouded forest and the images are breathtaking.

Beneath the vapid dialogue and melodramatic scenes, The Last Samurai is about something important, the adoption of foreign ways by Japanese authorities, an attempt to create a new form of feudalism, while maintaining past traditions like the samurai code of bushido.

The Last Samurai is the type of political story Japanese director Masahiro Shinoda might have told, a tale about a significant historical event during the Meiji Restoration, one that determined the type of nation Japan would turn out to be. Its samurai battles resemble classic films from Japanese masters Masaki Kobayashi (Samurai Rebellion) and Akira Kurosawa (Yojimbo, Sugato Sanshiro), although Zwick displays half the visual brilliance of either director.

Newly trained samurai Nathan Algren (Tom Cruise) leads the battle in The Last Samurai.

In fact, The Last Samurai has half the dramatic content of Zwick's previous war films, his Civil War drama, Glory, or his Desert Storm film, Courage Under Fire. His romantic Western, Legends of the Fall, packs a more emotional punch. Despite all the flash and luxury, The Last Samurai is Zwick's most devastating failure. Of the competing period epics currently in theaters, The Last Samurai lacks the sprit of Ron Howard's suspenseful Western The Missing. Director Peter Weir's nautical adventure Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World trumps The Last Samurai in all categories -- performances, storytelling, action and period detail. The Last Samurai is being promoted as the year's great epic drama but it fails to qualify as the leading film epic of this week.

To Zwick's credit, The Last Samurai does gain momentum during a nighttime ninja attack on the samurai village as well as the climactic face off with the Emperor's newly trained troops. Throwing stars, arrows and elaborately choreographed swordplay boost the tension. In the closing battle, cannonballs and explosions of dirt and sod generate much-needed excitement. Still, the fact that The Last Samurai finally comes alive due to the thrill of bloodletting confirms how empty its tale turns out to be.

When the black smoke finally clears the battlefield, The Last Samurai suffers from memories of Kurosawa and comparisons with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy.

The image of a samurai training, his dark silhouette contrasted by the stunning red sunset against the hills, remains the key symbol of The Last Samurai -- pretty, vacant and void of character. Grade: D