Valkyrie ~~~

Tom Cruise star vehicle or more? Well, definitely more thanks to the solid and mostly British supporting cast with the likes of Tom Hollander, Kenneth Branagh, Eddie Izzard and Bill Nighy, amongst others.

A real 'Boys Own' adventure set in the Second World War where members of the German Army plot to take out Adolf Hitler. As you can imagine, secrets abound and violence ensues. Who do you trust when Hitler's the target?

It's not a particularly cerebral film just a high quality, hold your breath and cheer for the goodies type picture. As mentioned, the cast is great (just a shame there are never enough roles for women in war films), the script wasn't too shoddy and the scenery and costumes were fantastic.

Are there any gripes to this film? No, not really. I suppose the only thing I could have done with a little more of was a slightly more definite time scale to everything. I didn't care about the minutes ticking by, I was more concerned with what blinking year and month it was. Nevertheless, I can't wait to see this romping WWII flick when it comes out on DVD.

As much as I want to hate Cruise, I just never can. He is truly a great actor and star and hats off to him for being able to rise above the hype to just get on with delivering another solid part. I particularly enjoyed the scenes in which the Brits had 'act-offs' with Cruise - who can enunciate and spit the furthest??? And who can argue with the eye-patch?

More please!

(Seen on 08/02/09)