MOVIE REVIEW: Valkyrie

Starring: Tom Cruise, Kenneth Branagh, Kevin McNally, Terrence Stamp Director: Bryan Singer Release Date: December 25, 2008 Running Time: 120 mins MPAA Rating: PG-13 Distributors: MGM United Artists - - - Fundamentally speaking, the appeal of Tom Cruise in the last few years doesn’t make any sense. Just as soon as he took Katie Holmes hostage and started parading her and her ‘too scared for escape’ look around the world, people seem to have become disinterested in anything he has to do professionally; or so they say. Sure he was great in Tropic Thunder, but I’m talking about the movies he has had to carry on his own. Everyone seems to talk a big game but with the exception of last year’s Lions for Lambs, you have to go all the way back to Magnolia, almost a decade ago, to find a film he starred in that didn’t gross at least $100M domestically. So much for disinterest. Maybe he just has mind control over all of us too. Keep in mind; these aren’t secrets I am exposing for the first time, so why his pick for his latest project was a big budget WWII Hitler assassination movie is beyond comprehension. For a man so caught up on selling his image, it stands to reason that there would be better ways to spend his time. It ended up being much worse than it appeared on the surface. The release date moved so much nobody cared when it was really coming out and as soon as the trailers came out the backlash was already in full effect.