Valkyrie (2008)

This was a basic action movie, disguised as a piece of history. It had a lot of good action sequences, some minor suspenseful moments and, in the end, I enjoyed it just about as much as I think they intended.

This story is true. Tom Cruise plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a recently disfigured member of the German Army who has begun to lose all hope in what Hitler is doing. He is not alone. They begin to plot an internal assassination attempt against Hitler, with the ultimate goal being a military run government. Things go right and things go wrong in the process. Anyone who knows anything about WWII history knows it fails, so I'll just tell you, it fails. Their goals, although not reached in the manner they expected, were achieved in the end.

This movie had a fun amount of action and some nice thrills every now and then. Nothing great, but nothing bad either. I would say I do recommend this to action movie fans, not to those looking for a good historical film.

RocknRolla (2008)

Oh, thank god Guy Ritchie is back to form. After his foray into mainstream (Swept Away) and a half-assed attempt to comeback (Revolver), he finally made a movie that gets back to his roots; dark humor with violence.

Too many overarching plotlines to get into, as per usual with Ritchie movies, so I'll just get into the main one. Rockstar Johnny Quid, who is a mob-boss's stepson, goes missing and all hell breaks loose in the process involving Russians, wannabe gangsters, junkies, music managers, and a beard. They all intertwine into a story of hilarity and mayhem.

Now, this movie definitely got some points knocked off for 1 major reason, and it happened twice in the movie. There were 2 blatent Pulp Fiction ripoffs in this movie. I'm not going to say what, but if you've seen Pulp, you'll know eactly when you see them. All that isn't to say this movie isn't fun.