‘Last Samurai,’ is majestic, ‘Timeline’ could be ignored

JOHN DEPKO

“The Last Samurai” is Hollywood’s latest effort at creating a

sweeping historical epic that will turn heads at Oscar time. Tom

Cruise has put his money and reputation on the line by being a

producer and the obvious A-list star of this major enterprise. He and

his partners have succeeded in creating a stunning film that has the

look and feel of greatness, but retains a few flaws.

This picture has that rare combination of far-reaching adventure

intertwined with intensely personal stories seen in films such as

“Dances With Wolves” and “The English Patient.” Tom Cruise puts his

heart into the role of Capt. Algren, a shabby former hero of

America’s Civil War and the Indian wars. He is offered redemption by

the Japanese government, which is desperate to enter the modern world

of warfare and commerce. The government offers him a fortune to train

a new imperial army to overcome the remnants of the ancient samurai

tradition, who stand in the way of the emperor’s plans to replace his

army’s swords with American guns.

Ken Watanabe is magnificent as the rebel samurai warlord

Katsumoto. His power and presence may easily earn him a Best

Supporting Actor nomination. After capturing Algren in a fierce

battle, he allows him to live through a quiet winter of captivity

that regenerates Algren’s soul and refines his heart under the care

of Katsumodo’s beautiful sister, Taka. The two men become bonded to

each other as honorable warriors who strive to understand the meaning

of their lives as equals. They are surrounded by many excellent

Japanese actors who command your attention as the inevitable battle

between Eastern and Western values unfolds.

The acting, directing, cinematography and majestic score are

beyond reproach. But at two hours and 25 minutes, it goes on too long

and undermines its strongest points with too many slow-motion scenes

of death and dismemberment. The ending doesn’t ring true in light of

all that happens before it. But the flaws can’t negate the fact that

this looks like “Braveheart” meets “Shogun” for high box office

results.

* JOHN DEPKO is a Costa Mesa resident and a senior investigator

for the Orange County public defender’s office.

‘Timeline’ should have been cut short

It was a lousy book and a worse movie. “Timeline,” both the book

and the movie, proved that all those involved with both projects

probably did fall out of a sequoia-sized stoopid tree and not miss a

single branch on the way down.

My weekend was ruined when the evil editor called me up Friday

afternoon and offered me the usual exorbitant fee if I’d grace the

Pilot’s pages with my usual scintillating observations. Batting zero

on counts (the fee and the scintillating part of the observations),

he said how about reviewing “Timeline,” a flick that’s been out for a

while, and much like this column, more or less ignored by the public.

The film opens in present time with a geezer sporting the

obligatory funny accent and professorially correct beard rooting

around in some backwoods ruins of the country we all love to hate:

France, but filmed in Canada. Why not, they’ve got frogs up there,

don’t they?

But these aren’t your everyday garden-variety ruins, no sir.

There’s a wormhole in them thar hills, and the professor, who

disappears into it, and the evil capitalistic war-mongering

corporation he’s working for are gonna exploit that sucker for

something. Unfortunately, they go to great lengths to explain this to

us, the nodding-off public.

Wormholes, for you ignoramuses out there, are the lazy man’s way

to time travel. Instead of building some cool looking machine with

lights and knobs and dials, these cinematic lightweights save on

special effects costs by having the actors jiggle, shake, roll their

eyes around and then evaporate from the screen in what appears to be

an oversized colander on steroids. This particular worm hole takes

people to 14th-century France.

The trouble with 14th-century France is that everyone looks like a

reject from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” That movie ruined

medieval flicks for all eternity. Can you really watch “Braveheart”

and not snigger at the ludicrous acting, sets and script? As the

wooden carts go by, you expect someone to bellow, “Bring out your

dead.” Where’s the guy with the clacking coconuts, the barnyard

animals tossed by catapult, the French sticking out their tongues and

blowing insults and raspberries at the English twits?

In any event, the evil corporation has to send a few fools back in

time to rescue a few other fools, primarily the aforementioned

professor. Dressed in funny clothes and sporting funky accents, these

meatballs arrive in 14th-century France and are immediately chased by

guys on horseback outfitted in funny helmets.

Let’s see, it’s 700 years ago, the local denizens speak unaccented

20th-century English, have teeth whiter than Tom Sawyer’s fence, not

a hair out of place nor makeup smudged, and have obviously learned

how to ham-it-up in front of a camera.

Our heroes -- a surfer dude, the obligatory chic, and the usual

passel of soon to be expiring yahoos who all sound like Groundskeeper

Willie from “The Simpsons” -- are immediately captured by the

invading English, who seem to have lost their accents upon crossing

the English Channel. Our intrepid idiots are just gonna have to

escape, snag the professor and head back to the future.

There’s a problem with all this time travel. It screws up your

DNA. Bodily organs suffer trauma. Blood vessels become misaligned.

You deteriorate as your brain becomes damaged. Obviously, you’ve

become a Democrat.

Some of the worst matte backgrounds in the history of modern, or

even not-so-modern cinema, are exhibited as our little band of bums

traipse past Styrofoam castles and cardboard forts on their way to

the climatic battle to save the rest of their group from an

excruciating death by the evil invaders, or a more excruciating death

by the horrible screenplay.

This is a script that actually allows dialogue such as: “I’ll find

a way”; “There is no way”; “I don’t have a choice”; and “Yes you do.”

And, of course, this prize of circumspection delivered with a

straight face: “I’ve killed the man. I’ve got to live with that.”

Good gawd, lemmie out of here. The Pilot doesn’t pay me that much to

listen to this garbage. Actually, they don’t pay me anything. At

least they know what the column’s worth.

So these herculon-clad clowns and their allies, the French,

advance upon the castle the invading English have captured. It’s

pre-Jackie Chan martial arts and mayhem as a quick kick in the groin

beats a pointy mace in the eye. The bland-to-bland combat drags on

for an eternity, as most of the warriors are better at drawing flies

than swords.

There’s a subplot or two going on while all these other goings-on

are going-on, but all it does is drag this sucker out to the

obligatory 90 minutes or so.

One could only have hoped for a wormhole for “Timeline.” Step into

it at the beginning and bingo, you’re instantly transported to the

end -- no suffering through the interminable middle.

* UNCLE DON’s Reviews of Nil Repute include B-movies and cheesy

musical acts for the Daily Pilot. He can be reached by e-mail at

reallybadwriting@aol.com.