“C-” Rating by Robert W. Hammerle

Let’s just face the obvious and call “Valkyrie” for what it is, namely dull, listless and uninspired. Director Bryan Singer’s depiction of the famous assassination attempt on Adolph Hitler in July, 1944, succeeds only in sucking the emotional life out of the audience in December, 2008. I can see the headlines, “HITLER LIVES _ _ _ AUDIENCE BORED TO DEATH!

Even with its extraordinarily talented cast, “Valkyrie” is little more than an unfortunate exercise of cinematic tedium. Tom Cruise is borderline preposterous as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, the eye-patch wearing leader of the failed conspiracy. Smug and self-righteous to the point where you almost feel sorry for Hitler, maybe Cruise’s days as a leading actor are behind him.

Why I could care less about anyone’s religious preference, something has changed in Cruise since he took his leap into darkness off Oprah’s couch and into Scientology. What happened to the actor who gave us “Risky Business” (1983), “Rain Man” (1988), “Born on the Fourth of July” (1989), “A Few Good Men” (1992), “Collateral” (2004) and “Jerry McGuire” (1996)?

On the other hand, as a character actor, think how deliciously demented he was in “Magnolia” (1999) or perversely funny he is in this year’s “Tropic Thunder.” There’s a message here, and I hope Cruise is listening.

Nonetheless, in “Valkyrie” Cruise leads a cast where everyone, and I mean everyone, hits one emotional note, namely morose. One could accurately claim that Tom Wilkinson, Kenneth Branagh and Bill Nighy are three of the more accomplished character actors working today, but you couldn’t tell it watching this hokum.

As a guy who has studied World War II in some detail, it is incomprehensible how Mr. Singer could make such a yawner out of one of the more intriguing and suspenseful moments of that War. Had this complex plan by a few daring German military and civilian leaders succeeded, the world would have never had to wait nine more disastrous months to be rid of Hitler.

Yet such a powerful morality tale is reduced to little more than a daytime soap opera in Mr. Singer’s hands. Whatever else “Valkyrie” could have been, it was functionally killed by the tragic decision to have actors with decidedly English accents (Terence Stamp, Nighy and Branagh) play Germans. What’s next, those same actors playing Japanese militants in a re-make of “Tora! Tora! Tora! (1970)?

In any event, consider yourselves properly warned. While Hitler miraculously escaped, I daresay you’ll be left wishing you could only be so lucky long before the closing credits.