Holiday Weekend Movie Forecast: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Revolutionary Road

The Tom Cruise vehicle Valkyrie opens tomorrow after a long, troubled production, during which the German government barred the crew from filming in certain places because of the star's adherence to Scientology, which is verboten in Germany. Directed by Bryan Singer, the WWII film features Cruise as German Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who joins a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The cast also includes such notables as Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Eddie Izzard, and Terrence Stamp. But does Valkyrie have the reich stuff? Joe Neumaier at the Daily News says nein: "If there are Nazis fighting other Nazis in a movie and it's still boring, something's gone wrong. Valkyrie has a coterie of problems, and represents a whole new front in Tom Cruise's public relations war, but first and foremost there's the tedium. Valkyrie is like having to watch someone build a bomb and then never getting to see it explode."