Valkyrie

Well made and beautifully depicted

Tom Cruise travels back in time to assassinate Hitler. Okay, that's not fair. Tom Cruise stars as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg who leads a group of German Army officers who plot to kill Hitler. This is by all accounts, a largely accurate retelling of the true story. It's a well-acted, great looking movie. It's exciting and interesting and Cruise is very good in his role. As I've stated before, he gets criticized unfairly too often. He is one of the last true "movie stars". Then why have I not rated this higher? It's because it looks far too slick. I may have watched too many WWII documentaries in my time or recreations of events starring no-name actors. It may not be fair, but it curbed the impact this otherwise very good film had on me. As it progressed, I kept waiting for the story to veer from reality because it looks so "Hollywood". It never did and I give it credit for that. But my experience was still dulled by my past big-budget movie "conditioning".