And while Valkyrie isn’t an amazing film by any means, it is a good one. Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, X-Men 2) has created an entertaining and exciting thriller about a group of German soldiers who attempt to assassinate Hitler and overthrow the Third Reich. Despite the fact that you know how it’s going to end (at least I sure as hell hope you do), it actually gathers strength as it approaches the climax.

Now out on DVD, Valkyrie doesn’t offer much in the way of bonus features, much to my reviewing pleasure. Two audio commentaries are included, one featuring Tom Cruise, Bryan Singer and Christopher McQuarrie, the other Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander. Of course, to watch the movie and listen to both commentaries, that’d mean you spend six waking hours on one film. Yikes.

For those who don’t have such patience or stamina, the only other bonus features are a rather bland making-of featurette called The Journey to Valkyrie, which offers your pretty standard fare of cast and crew interviews talking about how amazing their film is going to be., and a 45-minute documentary called The Valkyrie Legacy.

While Journey is relatively promotional in nature and offers little real value, The Valkyrie Legacy is an authentic documentary that explores the life and situations of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. I’m hardly a WWII buff, but I do find the time period quite fascinating; the movie provides enough in-depth material to make it well worth a viewing.

The Valkyrie special features aren’t anything to scream home about, though the documentary is pretty interesting. Thankfully, the movie itself, “despite” starring Tom Cruise, is a worthy entry in your collection.

I have the two-disc Director’s Cut version of Tropic Thunder on my desk, and with it comes several entertaining special features. I haven’t actually watched this new unrated director’s cut just yet (it adds 13 minutes to the film), but I will let you know when I do. Meanwhile, many of the special features are worth seeing, if only for their entertainment value.

Those looking for insightful behind-the-scenes examinations of the making of Tropic Thunder may be disappointed, as the DVD is less concerned with delivering something insightful as it is with being funny. For the most part, the Tropic Thunder features try to make you laugh, and some even interview the cast in character.

Since Tropic Thunder is a movie about a movie, this makes sense. Most of the features are about the making of the movie inside the movie, not about the movie we all went to see. This plays out well. For instance, The Hot LZ Blowing S#%t Up interviews Danny McBride as his character Cody, and he talks about how amazing it was for the crew to just blow into the untouched jungle, remove all the trees and destroy everything in sight in a matter of days.

The Cast of Tropic Thunder is also played out as partially in-character, and at the very least the actors play along in a laugh-out-loud way.

I watched Before the Thunder and Designing the Thunder, but for the life of me cannot remember what those featurettes were about. I believe this were more legit ones, and includes some script readings, casting choices and so on and so forth. There are some good nuggets in here.

Rain of Madness is a particularly funny documentary that plays out like a tragic, behind-the-scenes documentary that looks at what went wrong with the filming of the movie within the movie (did that make sense?). Directed by some British dude (because British narrators are better than anything else), the documentary looks at the problems of the picture and the events that led up to the tragic circumstances to follow. This mockumentary is downright funny at times, as one who didn’t know better could actually take it seriously.

There are some decent deleted and extended scenes as well, and an alternate ending that adds just a little more to the one seen in theaters. Of course, those of you who liked the viral videos that emerged from the MTV Movie Awards, they are included here.

Some of the video rehearsals are quite interesting as well.

The Tropic Thunder bonus features look to make you laugh more than teach you about film, and if that’s your cup of tea, you should find plenty to enjoy here. As for the movie itself, feel free to read my Tropic Thunder movie review.

For starters, his wife Katie Holmes restyled her hair, and not in a good way. I mean, if he wanted to marry a middle-aged mom, he would have married… well, some really excited middle-aged mom. I mean, her hair just looks dreadful – the only excuse would be if the new ‘do is for a movie. Either way, Holmes continues to get less and less sexy, which is a real disappointment.

Secondly, MGM basically told the world that Cruise’s upcoming movie Valkyrie basically sucks. Here’s the announcement MGM gave:

“MGM is proud and excited to be presenting Valkyrie, and because of that we want to give it the best launch possible,” said Clark Woods, President of Domestic Distribution of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, which is distributing the movie domestically. “When an opening became available for President’s Day Weekend, we seized the opportunity. Having seen a lot of the film and how great it is going to play once it’s finished, moving into a big holiday weekend is the right move.”

Sounds good, right? Wrong. Read between the lines. MGM moved Valkyrie from October 3, 2008, an early but still potentially viable release date for award recognition. Financially, moving Valkyrie from October to President’s Day Weekend is probably a good one, but for a war drama, you have to assume that original intentions were for the movie to be some kind of awards contender. Now releasing in February, the movie has no chance of getting any recognition whatsoever. How do I read that? That Valkyrie is going to suck.

Of course, the trailer makes the movie look pretty good. I’ve been wrong before, but only a few times. Aside from the lack of German accents from the characters, including Tom Cruise who boasts his American accent, Valkyrie looks engaging, exciting and interesting. I had never heard of the story before the big Cruise/Germany fiasco, but it’s definitely an intriguing one: I had never heard of a Nazi plotting to kill Adolf Hitler.

Too bad MGM informed me that Valkyrie is going to suck, and too bad for Tom Cruise and his crappy week.

Considering that Tom Cruise is trying to reestablish himself as a leading man after a bunch of PR nightmares over the last couple of years (not to mention a critical and box office flop in the form of Lions for Lambs), it isn’t completely unreasonable that he would consider returning to one of his most popular characters.

Hopefully the movie will be better than Queen of the Damned…