Valkyrie (PG-13-2008)

"Valkyrie" tells the story of a group of German officers who plotted to assassinate Hitler in the latter stages of WWII. Much of the press has centered around Tom Cruise and his performance (or lack of same) and I think it detracts from what is actually a very good movie. For the record, Cruise was absolutely fine in this role. Aside from the fact that he makes no attempt to pull off a German accent, his acting is quite good. He is also surrounded by a slew of top-flight character actors, all of whom you have seen before, but none of whom are "names". The cast overall was fantastic and the story was extremely interesting. For someone like myself, who was not all that familiar with the real story going in, it is amazing to see how close these men actually got to staging a coup and pulling Germany from the clutches of a madmen. The attention to detail on the sets was excellent. My only "issue" with the movie was Cruise's look overall. Very early in the film, he is badly injured in an explosion, losing a hand, some fingers on the other hand and his eye. He wears an eye-patch most of the time, but sometimes puts in a glass eye. It is these times that it struck me that he just looks too damn good. If he lost his eye in an explosion, I imagine there would be some scarring in the area of that eye. Cruise's face looks absolutely perfect. That issue did not really detract from my enjoyment of the movie one bit, but I did notice it. I found this to be an "incredible true story", as stated on the poster, and very entertaining.

Grade: B+

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