Cruise Gives Patchy Performance In Valkyrie

Y'all know I don't like Tom Cruise. He's a creepy, brainwashed zombie with a plastic smile and vacant eyes.

I won't be seeing his new movie, either. I just can't bring myself to funnel any money into Cruisitology and his cronies at United Artists. However, I do take some delight in letting you know that he's getting panned for his performance in the movie.

Much ado has been made about Valkyrie," starring Tom Cruise as would-be Hitler assassin Col. Claus von Stauffenberg.

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Turns out Cruise is both the central figure in Valkyrie and its weakest link. He's distractingly bad in this, the iconography of his celebrity so strongly overshadowing his performance. He's just too powerfully contemporary. With his hard, flat American accent, he stands out in every single scene. And he's not a good enough actor to immerse himself in this kind of period piece, or allow us to do the same. (Then again, if he had affected a German accent — or a British one to blend in among his co-stars — he would have invited derision for that, too. Maybe the guy just can't win.)

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He's outclassed and outmatched by every member of the strong supporting cast, any of whom would have been more believable as Stauffenberg: Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp and Bill Nighy as fellow German officers, even Eddie Izzard, who's a unique and unexpected choice.

I figured it was going to bad when the dialog in the trailer went, "Operation Valkyrie is in effect." Umm, that sounds like some fourth graders playing at recess.