Valkyrie Review
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Valkyrie
MGM
PG 13 120 min
As is usually the case in an imitative Hollywood no less than three WW2 films hit the theaters at once.
One is Daniel Craig in DEFIANCE, an escape film and GOOD starring Viggo Mortensen as a decent man caught up in the Nazi movement.
Of course the one with the biggest budget and most star power via Tom Cruise is VALKYRIE, the story of a failed coup against Adolph Hitler.
The buzz hasn’t been good for this one beginning with the addition of director Bryan Singer whose best work to date is 1995 classic THE USUAL SUSPECTS. I don’t forgive him for stinking up last years SUPERMAN RETURNS and he’s apparently slated for yet another try in 2010, but I digress.
The studio passed on a critics viewing, never a positive sign, and rumors of overruns and on set squabbles were rampant.
Tom Cruise gets a bad rap for reasons unrelated to his acting as I see it. There are some roles he can play as well or better than anyone in the business, but here he seems to be miscast. That isn’t his fault but there’s no point in the film that you ever forget he’s a megastar so he never really blends in with the solid cast, which includes Tom Wilkinson and the great Kenneth Branagh.
The film itself is rather dark and deliberate but while it is an interesting account of actual historical episode the suspense factor is blunted by just that fact. You see we know that Hitler wasn’t assassinated though it’s interesting to speculate on how world events would have played out if he had.
I guess the concern wasn’t that VALKYRIE would be panned but merely “damned by faint praise.”
Slightly above average is the most anyone can say.
C+
WSS
Westside [email protected]
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