Valkyrie

United Artists

Review in a Hurry: Tom Cruise goes back in time to assassinate Hitler! Except without any time travel stuff, which might have made this otherwise limp docudrama interesting.

The Bigger Picture: Director Bryan Singer's film Valkyrie—about the German army's aborted and failed attempts to assassinate Hitler—has a lot of high drama's usual suspects (Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh, Terence Stamp), but very little in the way of actual drama.

Part of it is history's fault; Valkyrie suffers from the most foregone conclusion since Titanic. Since the plan set in motion by disillusioned officer Claus von Stauffenberg (Cruise) is clearly doomed, the film hangs on the performances (all undistinguished, most undistinguishable) and the execution of the plot, which is hampered by agonizing indecision on the part of the conspirators. If this were a horror film, you'd be shouting at the screen for everybody to just wander into the basement already.

It doesn't help that Cruise is particularly ineffective; his usually undeniable physicality is hamstrung by the stiff-backed martinet role and his character's injuries. And since von Stauffenberg comes quite late to a conspiracy already in progress, Valkyrie essentially lacks not only a first but a second act, crucial omissions for a film whose ending can contain no surprises.

Singer and screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie would like Valkyrie to coast on the noble tragedy angle; to this end, the actors don't interact so much as issue pronouncements, and there's not a hint of levity to distract from the gravity of the situation. But this sort of preemptive self-congratulation, the film's defensive insistence on its importance, ultimately writes its own epitaph, and it's the same as that of the July 20 plot: too little and too late.

The 180—a Second Opinion: History Channel buffs don't need to be told this, but Valkyrie is proof that the presence of Nazis makes anything 30 percent more watchable. Without them around as villains, this would be unbearable.