Valkyrie ««½
PG-13, 120m. 2008
Cast & Credits: Tom Cruise (Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg), Kenneth Branagh (Major-General Henning von Tresckow), Bill Nighy (General Friedrich Olbricht), Tom Wilkinson (General Friedrich Fromm), Carice van Houten (Nina von Stauffenberg), Thomas Kretchsmann (Major Otto Ernst Remer), Terence Stamp (Ludwig Beck), Eddie Izzard (General Erich Fellgiebel), David Bamber (Adolf Hitler). Written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander. Directed by Bryan Singer.
The story about the last of fifteen unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Adolf Hitler in 1944 sounds like the kind of movie that has the word “epic” written all over it; perhaps more than that. If done right and properly marketed the story is the kind of film that ought to be the perfect candidate for Oscar nominations.
Valkyrie tells that tragic story but it is neither “epic” nor does it boast the words “Oscar worthy” despite being released at a time when a number of films are vying to be Academy Award contenders right now. The screenplay written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander and directed by Bryan Singer (Superman Returns-2006) is a two-hour Cliff Notes version of how those historic events happened completely lacking in suspense.
Perhaps the trouble began when the decision was made to have this film originally released as a summer movie last August and marketed more as an adventure movie. Rumors abounded that the film starring Tom Cruise as Nazi Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg; the leader responsible for plotting to kill Hitler, was going to be a flop. When the trailer premiered earlier this year, audiences wondered what was up with the eye patch Cruise’s character wears. Originally set for release in February 2009, when audiences embraced the film late this year during a successful test screening, the studio opted for a Christmas Day release instead.
There is no doubt much of the film’s success was going to ride on Cruise who has been under a lot of entertainment media scrutiny the past few years. All of which he brought on himself. His professing of love for now wife Katie Holmes jumping on the couch in front of Oprah Winfrey and arguing with Today host Matt Lauer about Scientology was just the tip of the iceberg. His collaboration with director/star Robert Redford in last year’s anti-terror-war political drama, Lions For Lambs, was a box office flop. One could say his recent Golden Globe nomination for his role as a balding, dancing heavy-set movie producer in this summer's successful comedy, Tropic Thunder, is a comeback.
On one level, Valkyrie could also be his comeback movie as well. His approach to the character is one of complete seriousness. Cruise has never been quite this believably dramatic portraying a historically tragic character since his role as a disenfranchised Vietnam veteran in Oliver Stone’s Born On the Fourth of July (1989).
The problem here is the screenplay. I cannot help but wonder what kind of movie Valkyrie could have been if Steven Spielberg handled the project. Like The Mist (2007), where I heard the phrase, “The Mist” uttered numerous times throughout the film, I must have heard three or four of the conspirator characters in Valkyrie utter a similar phrase about how they must show the world that not all of Germany was for Hitler.
“We have to show the world that not all of us are like him” was one such phrase and I heard it uttered a couple more times before the conspirators made their final plans.
I suspect the greatest obstacle a screenwriter faces is being able to make a story, on which the audience already knows how it is going to end, suspenseful to the point we hope the film ends on a more positive note. With Titanic (1997), I kept hoping the ship wouldn’t sink. I felt the same way watching The Perfect Storm (2000) hoping the sailors would make it home. History says otherwise.
Watching Valkyrie, I asked myself, “Shouldn’t I be on edge watching Cruise’s character stealthily walk away from Hitler’s bunker shortly before the bomb explodes hoping he’ll get away?” I wasn’t.
You would think sitting in a theater full of people opening day that if anyone was paying the closest attention to the story, they would gasp or get upset when one of Stauffenberg’s officers is three hours late in giving the orders for SS officers to take over various Nazi districts and arrest high ranking German officers loyal to Hitler despite lack of confirmation on whether The Fuhrer is really dead. All there was among the audience was dead silence.
By the time the conspirators were caught and executed near the end, it was too late to show any anger or emotion for these brave heroes despite one scene where one of the traitors tells his Nazi judges how their day of reckoning is coming with the fall of The Third Reich.
I wasn’t surprised to have learned shortly before the end credits rolled that a memorial is dedicated to the conspirators that stands in Berlin. Their story deserves a much better, more emotionally power driven movie compared to the final product eventually released.
©12/26/08
PG-13, 120m. 2008
Cast & Credits: Tom Cruise (Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg), Kenneth Branagh (Major-General Henning von Tresckow), Bill Nighy (General Friedrich Olbricht), Tom Wilkinson (General Friedrich Fromm), Carice van Houten (Nina von Stauffenberg), Thomas Kretchsmann (Major Otto Ernst Remer), Terence Stamp (Ludwig Beck), Eddie Izzard (General Erich Fellgiebel), David Bamber (Adolf Hitler). Written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander. Directed by Bryan Singer.
Valkyrie tells that tragic story but it is neither “epic” nor does it boast the words “Oscar worthy” despite being released at a time when a number of films are vying to be Academy Award contenders right now. The screenplay written by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander and directed by Bryan Singer (Superman Returns-2006) is a two-hour Cliff Notes version of how those historic events happened completely lacking in suspense.
Perhaps the trouble began when the decision was made to have this film originally released as a summer movie last August and marketed more as an adventure movie. Rumors abounded that the film starring Tom Cruise as Nazi Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg; the leader responsible for plotting to kill Hitler, was going to be a flop. When the trailer premiered earlier this year, audiences wondered what was up with the eye patch Cruise’s character wears. Originally set for release in February 2009, when audiences embraced the film late this year during a successful test screening, the studio opted for a Christmas Day release instead.
There is no doubt much of the film’s success was going to ride on Cruise who has been under a lot of entertainment media scrutiny the past few years. All of which he brought on himself. His professing of love for now wife Katie Holmes jumping on the couch in front of Oprah Winfrey and arguing with Today host Matt Lauer about Scientology was just the tip of the iceberg. His collaboration with director/star Robert Redford in last year’s anti-terror-war political drama, Lions For Lambs, was a box office flop. One could say his recent Golden Globe nomination for his role as a balding, dancing heavy-set movie producer in this summer's successful comedy, Tropic Thunder, is a comeback.
On one level, Valkyrie could also be his comeback movie as well. His approach to the character is one of complete seriousness. Cruise has never been quite this believably dramatic portraying a historically tragic character since his role as a disenfranchised Vietnam veteran in Oliver Stone’s Born On the Fourth of July (1989).
The problem here is the screenplay. I cannot help but wonder what kind of movie Valkyrie could have been if Steven Spielberg handled the project. Like The Mist (2007), where I heard the phrase, “The Mist” uttered numerous times throughout the film, I must have heard three or four of the conspirator characters in Valkyrie utter a similar phrase about how they must show the world that not all of Germany was for Hitler.
“We have to show the world that not all of us are like him” was one such phrase and I heard it uttered a couple more times before the conspirators made their final plans.
I suspect the greatest obstacle a screenwriter faces is being able to make a story, on which the audience already knows how it is going to end, suspenseful to the point we hope the film ends on a more positive note. With Titanic (1997), I kept hoping the ship wouldn’t sink. I felt the same way watching The Perfect Storm (2000) hoping the sailors would make it home. History says otherwise.
Watching Valkyrie, I asked myself, “Shouldn’t I be on edge watching Cruise’s character stealthily walk away from Hitler’s bunker shortly before the bomb explodes hoping he’ll get away?” I wasn’t.
You would think sitting in a theater full of people opening day that if anyone was paying the closest attention to the story, they would gasp or get upset when one of Stauffenberg’s officers is three hours late in giving the orders for SS officers to take over various Nazi districts and arrest high ranking German officers loyal to Hitler despite lack of confirmation on whether The Fuhrer is really dead. All there was among the audience was dead silence.
By the time the conspirators were caught and executed near the end, it was too late to show any anger or emotion for these brave heroes despite one scene where one of the traitors tells his Nazi judges how their day of reckoning is coming with the fall of The Third Reich.
I wasn’t surprised to have learned shortly before the end credits rolled that a memorial is dedicated to the conspirators that stands in Berlin. Their story deserves a much better, more emotionally power driven movie compared to the final product eventually released.
©12/26/08
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