Valkyrie – Review
by john on Jun.14, 2009, under Reviews
For the most part, I enjoy WWII movies. In those stories that rely on the battle between good and evil, you can’t get any more evil than the Nazis. Everyone knows this. Godwin’s Law even states that the longer an argument persists, the probability of someone making a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.
In Valkyrie, we’ve got a movie filled with Nazis. But this is a Tom Cruise movie, so he and his Nazi friends can’t be bad. The movie tries to point this out by them trying to kill Hitler, but when was the last time you saw Tom Cruise as a bad guy?
Project Valkyrie was the real-life covert mission to assassinate Hitler from within the Nazi ranks. It failed, obviously, but that doesn’t mean an interesting movie can’t come from it. There have been plenty of botched caper films that turned out great. Reservoir Dogs, for example. I’d argue that failed attempts can make for more interesting movies because they don’t follow the formula.
Unfortunately, Valkyrie’s first two acts are sleep-inducing with only the assassination attempt and its aftermath worth watching. This is really tragic,because after watching, I did some online research and the real story is pretty interesting. The truth is stranger than fiction, with some bizarre coincidences so maybe the writers avoided history to make the story more realistic. Oh who am I kidding? When was the last time Hollywood cared about getting facts right?
My biggest gripe about Valkyrie is the choice of actors. The director stole a page out of Star Wars and made all of the evil Nazis British. Well, all of them but Cruise. Don’t get me wrong, the actors are great, but when King Theoden starts talking about how the Nazis can drive the British out of North Africa, complete with English accent, it kills the impact a bit. I finally lost it when Eddie Izzard shows up later. The man makes a better woman than a Nazi.
The story is interesting, just poorly told. Go find a good documentary on Claus von Stauffenberg. You’ll be more entertained.
Grade: D+
