A Prayer To A Supreme Being

Dear God, Baby Jesus, or which ever higher power has executive control over Tom Cruise’s movies:

Please make him stop.

I finally watched Dances With Bravehearted NinjasThe Last Samurai” last night. I know, I’m late. I was kind of busy in December.

Anyway, we need you to make him stop. It’s bad enough that he has to use the patented Tom-Cruise-Is-Really-Emotional-And-Here’s-A-Close-Up-To-Prove-It shot in every other scene. Not to mention the “plucky American gets beat down again and again but keeps getting back up until everyone gains some respect for him” scene. But what’s really infuriating is that somehow we are supposed to believe that the Japanese cannot possibly appreciate their own rich cultural heritage until Tom Cruise explains it to them by handing over an ancient sword.

And speaking of that, how come a thousand samurai can get blown up with cannons, and riddled with Gatlin gun fire, and only Tom Cruise is able to survive? And he just has a slight limp? What’s up with that? I think you’ll agree that this kind of thing can’t go on.

If that’s not enough for you, don’t forget that he gets to kill a proud warrior from a family that has defended Japan’s honor for a thousand years, and within like a month is raising that man’s children as his own, and playing “hide the katana” with that man’s wife.

Please for all of us. Oh, and we’ll be talking later about that “strict” translation of Homer’s ancient Greek in “Troy.”