lifeonqueen | Valkyrie

I find it interesting that the first promotional vid for Bryan Singer's "Tom Cruise Saves Us from the Nazis" project Valkyrie has Ken Branagh doing most of the talking and we're shown no finished footage of Tom Cruise as Von Stauffenberg. Not that I wouldn't chose Branagh over Cruise to speak on any subject in the known universe (including Scientology) but isn't Cruise supposed to be the biggest movie star in the world™? Or maybe someone finally cottoned onto the fact that, compared to the rest of the cast - Branagh, Bill Nighy, Terence Stamp, Tom Wilkinson, Stephen Fry, Eddie Izzard, Christian Berkel - Cruise looks like a kid in a Hallowe'en costume. Prince Harry makes a more convincing Nazi (not to mention a more convincing soldier, although he does little more than play dress-up himself).

Early days yet but, given the bad early buzz on Cruise's latest pic - Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs - including a less than fresh rating from the early reviews, and Cruise's ongoing tabloid problem (not to mention his questionable range as an actor), I wonder if producers are regretting signing up Xenu's favourite son to headline in their movie. I find it hard to believe that Valkyrie was a project that needed Cruise's name to secure financing but stranger things have happened in Hollywood.

Time will tell whether or not the movie's any good but everytime I see that photo of chunky Tom dressed up like the Wehrmacht, my only thought is surely, surely there was another actor somewhere they could have found to play the role. Like, oh, maybe the sexy East German playright from The Lives of Others. Though why Hollywood would want to cast a talented German actor to play a German hero, I don't know....