Cheat Sheet

George Pimentel/WireImage, Jennifer Graylock/AP

Moviegoers will have a choice between two of Hollywood’s leading men over the holidays: Brad Pitt in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Tom Cruise in Valkyrie. Which A-lister is better worth your money? The Associated Press clearly favors Pitt. Button is, according to reviewer Christy Lemire, “a grand, old-fashioned epic that takes mind-boggling advantage of the most modern moviemaking technology.” Lemire is less kind toward Cruise: “He's distractingly bad in this, the iconography of his celebrity so strongly overshadowing his performance. He's just too powerfully contemporary. With his hard, flat American accent, he stands out in every single scene. And he's not a good enough actor to immerse himself in this kind of period piece, or allow us to do the same.”