'SAMURAI' SERIOUS, SILLY, SPECTACULAR.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

THE ``DANCES With Dragons'' comparisons that everybody's making for ``The Last Samurai'' are certainly apt. This tale of a troubled Civil War veteran who comes to cherish the virtues of Japan's traditional warriors as their way of life disappears is only missing the buffalo.

But a more interesting picture to measure this handsome but addled Tom Cruise epic against is the current ``Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.'' As 19th-century adventures go, the Russell Crowe seafaring saga is noticeably smarter, more historically credible and has a jolly, underlying sense of its own faint ridiculousness.

On the other hand, this film by Edward Zwick (whose ``Glory'' was good and ``Legends of the Fall'' wasn't), is questionable historically, dramatically and morally. Not to mention that it is gravely serious to a ridiculous extent.

Yet, somehow, ``Last Samurai'' is the more enjoyable film to watch.

Part of that is obviously attributable to its magnificent combat sequences, photographed with spectacular verve and emotional intelligence by ``Braveheart'' and ``The Thin Red Line's'' John Toll. They make the tedious moments well worth sitting through, which is something that ``M & C'' could not always claim.

Cruise's performance is just as successful an element of the film. It's another in the once-insufferable superachiever's fascinating film forays into abjection, following on the heels of the tortured anti-heroes in ``Jerry Maguire,'' ``Magnolia,'' ``Eyes Wide Shut,'' ``Vanilla Sky'' and ``Minority Report.''

This movie's Capt. Nathan Algren isn't always as complex as some of those masochistic creations. Still, there's something compellingly primal in watching Cruise beat his character up, then get beaten up by other characters, for the sins of what might be an entire national attitude. Algren rode with Custer during and after the Civil War, and that turned the brilliant officer into a ruined man. Days after Little Bighorn, a despised former colleague (professional screen weasel Tony Goldwyn) tracks down his dissolute former comrade and makes an attractive offer: Come to Japan, where the emperor is forming a modern army. They are to fight the rebelling samurai whose three-century feudal grip on the country the enlightened young ruler is rapidly bringing to an end.

Once in Tokyo, Algren is sent out by Yankee-loving businessmen courtiers to engage the arrow-flinging, sword-swinging retainers of recalcitrant Lord Katsumoto (Ken Watanabe). The rifle-toters are predictably decimated and Algren taken prisoner.

Rather than just lopping off his head as tradition instructs, Katsumoto wisely figures that he can learn a lot about what he's up against by observing the American. As months go by in the lord's pleasant village, Algren learns how to fight like the samurai do. He also gets the notion that they live a pure, ascetic life that's superior to the West.

Which is true, if you leave out the fact (which the movie does) that this warrior elite essentially kept everyone else in Japan in serflike servitude for centuries. But no matter. Algren inevitably comes around to Katsumoto's worldview, while barely managing not to come on to the warlord's elegant sister Taka (Koyuki), who's been ordered to care for the barbarian.

But, since he's played by Tom Cruise, she grows to like Algren anyway. Which should give you some idea of how Zwick, Marshall Herskovitz and John (``Gladiator'') Logan's screenplay gets it wrong when it comes to motive and rationalization.

Yes, ``Last Samurai'' falls squarely into the category - no, make that the trap - of thoughtful-action-movie-for-people-who-don't-want-to-think-too-hard. But it does so beautifully, often thrillingly, and with a romanticism that's as irresistible as it is impossible to forgive. This ``Samurai's'' sword cuts both ways.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

THE LAST SAMURAI - Three stars

(R: violence, children in jeopardy)

Starring: Tom Cruise, Ken Watanabe, Koyuki, Tony Goldwyn, Timothy Spall, Hiroyuki Sanada, Billy Connolly.

Director: Edward Zwick.

Running time: 2 hr. 34 min.

Playing: Wide release.

In a nutshell: Confused epic about an American cavalryman turning Japanese during the end of the samurai era boasts terrific battle sequences, a strong star turn and no common sense whatsoever.