Good, but Tom Cruise?

Rating: 8/10 (15 November 2012)

It's a good film and fairly accurate historically. Very commendably for a Hollywood film, it is designed for adults and not popcorn munching adolescents. It doesn't dumb the subject down and is not afraid to be rather talky.
A lot of money was clearly spent on it, on special effects and period detail. It is packed with top class actors (most of them British, with a scattering of Germans).
One snag: Tom Cruise. Is he anyone's idea of a cultured Prussian aristocrat of seventy years ago? He's certainly not mine. His demeanour, his body language and his accent all shout "modern American film star". Basically, he plays a slightly modified version of himself.
Was this really necessary to pull in the audience? I hope it wasn't.