Apparently a big action film about a one-eyed Tom Cruise trying to batter Hitler to death with a suitcase isn’t all that. Who knew?

However, Tom Cruise isn’t going down without a fight. It’s been claimed that staff at a radio station were offered a free screening of Valkyrie – at Tom Cruise’s actual house – but only on the proviso that they all said that Valkyrie was a masterpiece, that Tom Cruise was a sexy virtuoso of acting and that Katie Holmes‘ dungeon actually didn’t look that uncomfortable really.

There’s a glut of big, big Oscar-worthy movies coming out at the moment, from Kate Winslet’s moving portrayal of a Nazi in the upcoming adaptation of the acclaimed novel Holocaust MILF Sluts Go Wild to Meryl Streep’s incendiary performance in Doubt, the follow-up to Mamma Mia that explores institutionalised paedophilia in the priesthood to the timeless beat of some of Abba’s most beloved hits.

Our point is that it’s hard to get your movie noticed at the moment. Especially, as it turns out, if your movie is a dreary load of cock about Hitler that stars one of the most profoundly unlikeable actors in movie history. Which hobbles Tom Cruise’s new film Valkyrie from the outset, really.

To put it politely, Valkyrie has had a troubled birth. Germany tried banning Tom Cruise from filming there, then there were all the accidents, then its release got shunted around the calendar like a flaming dogpoo that nobody knew how to put out properly. And that was before the reviews started coming in.

The early word on Valkyrie is that it’s ‘unengaging’ and that Tom Cruise is ‘distractingly bad’ in it. But that doesn’t sit too well with Tom Cruise himself – after the disappointment of Mission: Impossible III and the fetid, unwatched abortion that was Lions For Lambs, Tom needs Valkyrie to be a great big hit. If it isn’t a massive, career-resuscitating blockbuster, then Tom Cruise will have insincerely apologised to Matt Lauer for absolutely nothing at all, and that would just tear him apart.

That’s why Tom Cruise has apparently been offering critics private screenings of Valkyrie at his house so long as they say something – anything – nice about the film. MSNBC reports:

According to a source with radio station K-Earth 101, the Cruise camp was willing to go to great lengths to garner some positive publicity. In fact, they went so far as to offer a screening for anyone at the station and their friends at the Cruise home, according to the source. “They offered to hold it in Tom’s home — they didn’t say if he’d be there or not. We just had to agree to say ‘nice things’ about the movie.”

Now, it goes without saying that this news is the last thing that Tom Cruise wants to get out. It makes him look like a needy, approval-seeking idiot desperately doing anything he can to save a movie that he knows stinks. It’s literally the worst publicity that Valkyrie could get – and since its publicity already includes the pull-quote ‘Tom Cruise is distractingly bad’ that’s really saying something.

But you know what? We’re willing to give Valkyrie a chance. Personally we’ve always found Tom Cruise to be an engagingly charismatic actor, plus he’s surrounded by a cast of exceptionally talented character actors and telling a story of enormous global significance. In fact, we’re going to confidently predict that Valkyrie will be one of the best movies made this decade. We can’t wait to go and see Valkyrie.

And, best of all, we’ll get to go and see it in the brand new sports car that Tom Cruise is going to send us for writing that last paragraph. Remember the contract, Tom. The boot has to be stuffed with jewels and prostitutes. Again, that’s jewels and prostitutes.

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It’s a tough job – because, as we all know, films don’t get any better than overlong Bourne rip-offs about a man who cries blood when he’s losing at cards – and it seems like it might have been too much of a tough job for Quantum Of Solace.

Early reviews for Quantum of Solace are starting to trickle in, and they’re all fairly scathing. But James Bond movies always tend to be a direct reaction against the previous one, so we can all relax. The follow-up to the emotionally bleak Quantum Of Solace – provisionally entitled Daniel Craig Punches A Laser-Shark In His Little Knickers – is sure to be a belter.

The omens for Quantum Of Solace weren’t great from the outset. Following a success as big as Casino Royale was always going to be tough, but following it with a movie with the world’s worst name directed by a man whose last film was about kites, written by a bald Scientologist, featuring a theme-tune that sounds like an angry wasp smacking against the inside of an upturned metal dustbin and starring a 12-fingered woman doing an impression of a Torrey Canyon gannet probably wasn’t going to help very much either, to be honest.

Having said that, though, nobody thought that Casino Royale was going to be any good either, so maybe Quantum Of Solace could pull off the impossible and end up halfway decent too, couldn’t it?

Well, no. Not if the early stream of Quantum Of Solace reviews are anything to go by. Here’s the best of what we’ve seen so far…

Kim Newman from Empire says that “while it’s exciting, it’s not exactly anyone’s idea of fun. To keep in the game, perhaps the next movie could let the hero enjoy himself a bit more.”

Richard Brookes from The Times was especially unimpressed. “Bond is a boorish oaf who simply rushes from country to country with the manic speed of Jason Bourne, including sequences shot in Panama, Chile, Italy, Mexico and Austria, in a plot about holding a country to ransom over its water supply. Quantum of Solace lacks any wit, ironic or otherwise, which has been a strength of so many 007 films.”

The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw claims “I was disappointed there was so little dialogue, flirtation and characterisation in this Bond: Forster and his writers Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade clearly thought this sort of sissy nonsense has to be cut out in favour of explosions… I was also baffled that relatively little was made of the deliciously villainous Amalric: especially the final encounter.”

The Mirror’s Dave Edwards thinks that Quantum Of Solace “doesn’t feel like a Bond film at all. Not once does Craig say: ‘The name’s Bond. James Bond.’ There’s no Q or his gadgets. Heck, we even see Bond in a cardigan.”

A cardigan? Well eff that. Anyway, it was always fairly obvious that Quantum Of Solace wasn’t going to be particularly amazing, because of the well-worn ‘one good, one bad’ James Bond formula. Casino Royale was good, so Quantum Of Solace has to be bad. Then the movie after Quantum Of Solace will be good, and the one after that will be about a man with a dream machine trying to saw the world in half with a space laser that only an invisible car can stop. That’s just how it works. Don’t shoot the messenger.

Anyway, just because the Quantum Of Solace reviews are bad, it doesn’t mean that you can’t have fun watching it. Why not do what we plan to do – every time you see a piece of jarring product placement in Quantum Of Solace, shout the name of the offending brand as loudly as possible. You’ll be thrown out by the twelfth “SONY!”, promise.

We're talking about Led Zeppelin, of course – last night marked the long-awaited, obscenely-anticipated, ticket website-melting Led Zeppelin comeback at the O2. But even though the band is now made up of Michael Winner, a curly-haired toby jug, a bank manager and someone's son, could Led Zeppelin match the hype? We've got a round-up of some of the best Led Zeppelin reviews from last night for you, saving you the trouble of wading through the foaming avalanche yourself.

Warning: the following article contains the phrase "Page dispensed powerchords like an aged Thor lobbing down thunderbolts for kicks." Seriously.

By now you know all the facts about Led Zeppelin's live return. 22 years after they buggered up a comeback at Live Aid – although it's easier to just blame Phil Collins for that one, like we tend to do for everything – Led Zeppelin decided reform for one concert as a tribute to their dead record label boss. It was a risk – not only were Led Zeppelin opening themselves up to criticism about everything from their age to the way that all their songs go on for eight hours, but also it'd mean they'd fall behind in their sideline of bitching about merchandise websites a lot.  

But last night Led Zeppelin got to show if they still had it in front of a tiny slice of the 170 trillion people who attempted to buy tickets for their comeback show. Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham's son Jason – whose father wasn't able to attend because it'd mean he'd miss Dragon's Den – turned up at the O2 arena in London to show what we could do. We weren't there, obviously, but that doesn't mean we can't see what everyone else thought of the Led Zeppelin comeback.

Alexis Petridis of The Guardian wrote: "The riff that powers In My Time Of Dying is authentically churning and queasy, Ramble On sounds not like a song that's been brought out of mothballs for a benefit concert but wrigglingly, obscenely alive; Trampled Underfoot's conjunction of jittering funk and squealing, metallic guitar seems more bizarre and beguiling than ever."

Ben Ratliff of The New York Times wrote: "Mr. Plant — the youngest of the original members, at 59 — doesn’t walk and gesture like an excited woman anymore. Some of the top of his voice has gone, but except for one attempted and failed high note in “Stairway to Heaven” (“there walks a la-dy we all know{hellip}”), he found other melodic routes to suit him."

David Cheal from The Telegraph wrote: "Then it got better still: Black Dog. Byzantine riff, pulverising drums, hollering vocals. Magic. And no sign of Jimmy Page's finger injury that had caused the gig to be delayed. 'Good evening,' said Plant."

And finally, since we promised, here's what Pete Paphides from The Times wrote: "Plant’s quick kick to the base of his mike stand sent it flying up into the path of his hand. Page dispensed powerchords like an aged Thor lobbing down thunderbolts for kicks. It had been good before, but something of the devil seemed to get hold of them at this point. Now sans shades, Page launched into a filthy seam of swamp guitar, from which a magnificent In My Time of Dying swelled to epic proportions."

Sounded good, but can those critics say that they've witnessed the monolithic rock spectacle of Chico from X Factor performing at Skegness Butlins? No, no they can't.

Now the biggest question is about the future of Led Zeppelin. Will they go on a world tour like that bloke from The Cult said? Or will they stick to their original story about only doing one show to honour the memory of Ahmet Artegun? Fingers crossed for the first one – because we get the feeling that a reformed Led Zeppelin could be one of the biggest live draws of all time. 

At least until Boyzone get their act together and start doing some shows, anyway.