Bryan Singer: His Films Ranked From Worst To Best

By 2008, it had been a fair few years since Bryan Singer had made a down-to-earth, grown-up movie. What better way to get back into serious mode than by taking on a real-life story from World War II, set in Nazi Germany itself?

However, Valkyrie isn't necessarily Singer's Schindler's List. In fact, while we're using Spielberg movies as a basis for comparison, it's more akin to Munich; as much as it's a serious drama tackling sensitive subject matter, it's also a good old-fashioned men on a mission thriller. Unfortunately, something about it never quite sits right.

Part of the problem may be Tom Cruise's casting in the lead as Colonel Claus von Staffenberg, a high-ranking officer in the German army who became leader of a covert resistance set on killing Hitler and overthrowing the Third Reich. The fact that Cruise, plus the bulk of his largely British co-stars (Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy and Terrence Stamp among them) perform the roles in their own accents means the film always has a distinct sense that it's a Hollywood-ised history.

Perhaps an even more pressing issue is that anyone who remotely knows their history knows from the beginning that the mission will fail (Inglorious Basterds this ain't), which does rather undermine any real sense of tension.

Nonetheless, Valkyrie does tell a story worth remembering, and one certainly hopes it isn't the last time we'll see Singer tackle more grounded material.