VALKYRIE

year: 2009

rating: **

Okay, Tom Cruise is... Tom Cruise. That's it. Gone are the days of "Taps" when he could actually be another person, a character PLAYED BY Tom Cruise not TOM CRUISE as himself AS another character. This film is no different. He's Tom Cruise playing a guy who wants to overthrow Hitler. Now the intentions of this man (based on real life) and his comrades, all part of the Nazi party, in this film are to rid the world of Hitler to save lives, but historically they wanted to save Germany and Socialism (their brand of it anyway) and not LOSE the war but instead to END IT with their party intact (without being run by a madman). It's okay to turn these fellows into superheroes because killing Adolph would have been a super-duper thing... and director Bryan Singer has made a great superhero film (XMAN) and a really bad one (SUPERMAN RETURNS) so he can't be blamed for over-the-top heroics, right? A lot of the time, though, the modernized high-octane action just doesn't fit this film, which tries to be a "suspense packed with everything".