Cruise is miscast here. He just doesn't seem to have the gravitas to pull off the role. Cruise's portrayal seemed similar to one we've seen before. I kept wondering when he would ask Hitler to tell him the truth and did he order the code red and to show him the money.

They didn't speak English with a German accent.

If you want this to be realistic, it would be German with English subtitles.

It's a movie. Why is having Germans speak mangled English better? If this is what you're focusing on, then I feel sorry for you.

Jessus Christ, you fucking morons. It's an AMERICAN film, aimed for an ENGLISH speaking audience.

Go back and suck on your mommmy's tit so we don't have to listen to your little school girl crying bullshit.

That said, this movie will be great. Despite what the ignorant crybaby piss-ants bitch about.

Without any accent whatsoever, it's as if Hollywood just came out and said: "hey, if you don't care, we don't care."

"Dis-missed!"

I can't guarantee it's validity and since it's an early draft, it may be worthless...but if you want it let me know and I'll send it on.

Secondly, you serious? Lions for Lambs was the shittiest political commentary film to come out in the past few years littered with shitty political commentary film. It had nothing new to say, and couldn't even come up with an interesting way of telling it.

So basically, what I'm saying is, Valkyrie looks bad. But yeah, maybe it will look better because it's going to be standing along side shitty ass winter movies.

Ahhh Good times.

However, you could also say that thanks to the existence of Hollywood all American historical moments have been reproduced into fucking oblivion so many times that they now must outsource to historical moments in other countries because those stories haven't been told yet...for better or for worse..

It's just a sort of standardization now, it's expected to at least have the accent, because in the last 10-20 years Americans have lost their sense of disbelief (if Raiders of the Lost Ark was released today it would get slammed by AICNers). So accents are pretty much a must at todays day in age. Otherwise, it's just like wtf?!!

There are also rumours that a revised draft, maybe even the shooting script itself, might end up online in a few days.

I'm off to sleep...there are some spoilers in the scriptgirl talkback for the script if anyone wants to check them out without having to read the whole thing.

"Valkyrie" could be a nice recovery for Singer after "Superman Lifts Things." Hope so, anyway. I'm not saying the movie won't kick ass, but my first impression is that Cruise's accent is supremely distracting. We'll see.

no accents = not an issue. this movie brings to light a piece of history that most folks don't know about. i'm stoked for it.

But remember "Schindler's List?" Liam Neeson gave us a convincing German accent, which went a hell of a long way toward manifesting his deep character. It seems to me that Bryan Singer saw real-life photos of von Stauffenberg, got excited cuz he looked like Cruise, and made the call, not considering whether Cruise would actually sound like or be appropriate for the part.

Can you imagine an action flick where Saddam Hussein speaks with a smooth American accent? Or a Chinese dictator sounds like he's from Brooklyn or New York City? It'd be weird and wouldn't work.

Your point is still a good one: accents shouldn't matter that much. Then again, can you imagine an actor playing George W. speaking in a stark Russian accent instead of a trademark Texas drawl? Yeah. That's why I'm having a hard time with Cruise. It sounds like he didn't even make the attempt.

We'll see.

If you put up something sent to you by a PR agency and then disable people's ability to reply all that will happen is that everything will get flooded with angry keyboard happy geeks. Don't geld the TB, Harry- it's a terrible mistake.

Me, I couldn't give a toss- I didn't read it in the first place, and I won't in future, but I can see this is a mistake.

Another bad idea.

I understand you're trying to make the point that accents don't matter in films, which is fine, but you're torpedoing both your person and argument with statements like "there is no british accent, you plebs."

I'm here to let you know: I wouldn't tell people in London, Bristol, Leeds there's no British accent. They might lose all sense of reality.

Anyone count Cruise's fingers? He's wearing the eyepatch so I have to think he should also be missing some fingers. That does, after all, play a part in how the bomb was designed.

From what I gather, regarding Gone, I have to think it wasn't Harry who thought to remove it. It was probably the PR company asking him to do so after seeing the intense negative reaction it got in the TBs. I'm sure everyone involved was hoping it would be the next Twilight. Instead, it seems it became, around here at least, to be the next Batman & Robin, Jon Peters' Superman, and the Sex and the City Movie, combined.

If it had been more appropriate (and good)then I'm sure it would have gone down well. The idea is a good one, but the execution was fucking abysmal and turning off TB's on future book chapters is very much blaming the TB'ers for Harry's mistake.

People here are suspicious at the best of times, and when something as wrong and sub-par as Gone hit they were on it like a fucking rash. This is not a surprise.

As for Valkyrie, Tom doing a German accent is probably like Madonna trying to rap. And yes it's strange, but only because we're all so conditioned. The whole American accent = good guys, English accent = bad guys is pretty silly too, even if it does work. So is foreigners supposedly talking in their own languages by speaking English with an accent. Like I say, we're all used to it, but the concept of an accent substituting for people speaking in their native language is actually ridiculous. Especially in films based around real-life happenings that go for any level of authenticity. I'm not talking about Pathfinder here.

It's actually quite insulting, considering it's basically because the average English speaker is either too dumb or too lazy or too secretly bigoted to read subtitles.

P.S. Barnaby Jones - and that one was a remake of a Kurosawa film anyway!

It's not the lack of accent that makes me think he's not really trying. It's the seemingly lack of effort in inhabiting a role that is different from the one he plays offscreen. Acting is more than just line delivery. It's in mannerisms and facial expressions. As someone noted above, Cruise has a limited range of expressions. His taking-a-dump" face, his 1000-yard-stare, and his trademark grin.

I have found that Cruise is at his best when playing a well-defined character, such as Ron Kovic, or Lestat, or Frank Mackey. But everything I've seen of him here is Maverick in a Nazi uniform. The eyepatch and uniform isn't enough to create a character. Good acting is more than a decent wardrobe. I hope he can pull this off but I haven't seen evidence of it yet.

Eyes Wide Shut, Magnolia, MI2, Vanilla Sky, Minority Report, Last Samurai, Goldmember, Collateral, War of the Worlds, MI3, Lions for Lambs.

It's brilliant, and has some of the same cast members.