Like EW’s blogger says, it’s comically preposterous — but why? Part of it, surely, is that Cruise himself cuts a sufficiently absurd figure by now that he can’t inhabit a historical role, especially one of this gravity. (Not that he ever really could but he was fine in “Born on the Fourth of July.”) Part of it also is the incongruity of surrounding him with British actors while he’s doing his smirking cocksure jackass shtick. Pity poor Branagh, who did a fantastic job in “Conspiracy” as Reinhard Heydrich and is reduced here to being a wingman prop for Col. Toothy von Stauffenberg.

But the main factor contributing to the absurdity? The eyepatch, of course. Dude. Click the image to watch.

Update: While we wait for this one to detonate, Cruise tries to figure out why a dreary, talky anti-war picture proved to be box office poison.