he Last Samurai—Edward Zwick’s epic clunker about a vaguely embittered Civil War veteran (Tom Cruise) paid to train Japan’s first modern army in order to eliminate the threat of a rebellious samurai horde whom Cruise’s character is abducted by and, of course, quickly comes to deeply admire and, thus, takes up arms with against his original employers in the climactic showdown, yadda yadda yadda—is bad. Really bad. Really, really bad. Quite awful, in fact.

Ordinarily, I’d be a merciless prick and go on for a dozen paragraphs or so about every little thing that’s rotten in this movie. But, hey, it’s the holiday season, the time of year to be kind and charitable. The least I can do is give a buck or two to that guy in the Santa hat outside the mall, freezing his ass off while ringing that bell, and offer some constructive criticism to Zwick and Co. rather than bah-humbugging all over their fancy-schmancy Oscar bait.

Should Zwick ever decide, for whatever reason, to, say, remake The Last Samurai or, more plausibly, release an alternative version on DVD, here are ten simple suggestions on how to mold his mess into something more relatively watchable.

10. Axe that awful opening and closing narration by the British guy. I felt like I was watching some IMAX feature on "Japan’s Rich History." It just makes the movie even sillier, which is definitely not the route to go on this one, unless the decision is made to completely camp things up (in which case, for starters, replace the subtitles with bad voice dubs!). Come to think of it, that isn’t all that bad of an idea as, really, it’s about half-way there already. (Line for the ages: "I won’t tell you about how he died... I’ll tell you about how he lived.")

09. Also, get rid of Tom Cruise's journal voice-overs about these "unusual" and "intriguing people." They're straight out of Dances with Wolves, though the film blatantly rips off not only Kevin Costner's Oscar winner, but Mel Gibson's Braveheart, too: I was just waiting for a wounded Tom Cruise to yell "Freeeeeeedoooooom!!!!" (Zwick’s film actually manages to top Gibson’s in terms of sheer historical obliviousness, no easy task).

08. Lose that "It was a good death” line; it's a clear reference to Zwick's similarly terrible Legends of the Fall.

07. Make movies, not postcards: John Toll is a great cinematographer. Here, however, he crosses that thin luminous line between breathtakingly beautiful and so damned picturesque it's tacky.

06. Also, the frequent Tom Cruise close-ups suggest that this might just be little more than a vanity film. Oh, wait...

05. Have a less painfully obvious score. This film has absolutely no room for anything resembling subtlety or nuance because the booming, would-be "powerful" music hammers in during every Big Important Scene.

04. Worth considering: Talk Terrence Malick into (re)directing it; guaranteed to erase any trace of sucking.

03. Must the title be so infuriatingly literal? I mean, come on, people! All—every single solitary one!—of these fierce, devoted samurai warriors are killed in battle, except... Tom Cruise! "Dude, he's, like, the last samurai! Get it?" (NOTE: I’ve heard it argued that Ken Watanabe’s Katsumoto is the real "last samurai" and, alternately, that the title refers not to a single character but instead the sun setting on the samurai tradition, being that the word "samurai" can be used singularly or plurally. To these Deep Thinkers: Who’s the last man standing in samurai gear on that battlefield? Who ultimately convinces the emperor to Remember the Old Ways? Who do we see, in the film’s epilogue, living happily ever after with Hot Japanese Woman in that cozy little samurai village? I rest my case.).

02. Include at least one nude scene featuring Hot Japanese Woman. I’m not merely being chauvinistic and/or horny here; everyone knows that movies centering on a white movie star stud immersed in the tradition and beauty of an exotic culture typically feature one or more nude/sex scenes featuring our pale-faced hero’s local love interest. I, for one, felt cheated during several seemingly promising scenes that ended with little more than longing, suggestive glances exchanged between Cruise and Hot Japanese Woman. I’m sorry, but Wong Kar-wai, Ed Zwick is most certainly not. The only thing that made Legends of the Fall almost endurable, aside from Toll’s gorgeous photography, was Julia Ormond’s gorgeous body.

01. This dawned on me while watching the film: the samurai warriors should have ridden into battle chanting "Not gonna get us! Not gonna get us!" If this had happened, I honestly don't think I would have it in me to hate this movie.