"Valkyrie" Review

Over a month ago I trashed "Valkyrie" naturally at this point I had not seen the movie, yet from the trailers and some research on the actual history of operation Valkyrie I knew there would be a few problems.

To Recap what I ranted about in my previous post on "Valkyrie"

1. The movie should have been made in German, with a mostly German Cast. It's not our story to tell. In the name of historical accuracy, as well as in honor of the brave people who risked everything to help out in this operation it should be told in German.

2. The director Bryan Singer was not the best choice to direct a serious World War II drama. Just so you understand why he is not up to the challenge of directing a movie like this, his previous works include "X-Men", "X2", and "Superman Returns."

3. Tom Cruise, really need I say more. At one point in his life he showed talent as an actor, however his performances lately have been lacking. While he can still turn out a great performance as a comic character (he did do a great job in Tropic Thunder) or as a romantic lead, he can't handle a role this intense.

And folks, let me tell you I was completely right.

Now it started out ok. Point in fact I was impressed with the directors solution to the language problem. He started out with title cards in German (First there was a very cool retro style screen with the Valkyrie, and then the oath taken by all Nazi's)which fade into English. The first few lines of the movie are delivered by Tom Cruise in German and then, there is sort of a cross fade into English. It's basically telling the audience "Hey pretend everything is really being said in German, we just faded into English for you."

Throughout the movie you would also hear unimportant background conversations being said in German. It's a good solution to the problem, however it's still not a movie in German, try harder. On the same subject it really annoyed me that all of the actors in the film spoke with different accents. If you must do a movie about German history in English then decide on a fricking accent. Have all the actors speak with an American accent, an English accent, or a German accent not everyone speaking in their native accent all willy-nilly.

Enough of bitching about the language issues I must continue on with the rest of the movie.

The Director made another smart choice with the opening of the film, he opened it in North Africa. Not only did it give us background on how Claus Von Stauffenberg got the badass eye patch (amongst other injuries), it tells us that he was pretty rebellious in the past to get sent down there in the first place, but thats not all. The really brilliant thing about starting the movie out in North Africa is that they don't look like Nazi's. That's right when we are first introduced to our hero we are in a desert area where there are few if any swastikas and the uniforms look different then ones we are used to seeing. So we are set up to see this guy as someone who is not a Nazi, despite the fact that he will be wearing a uniform for the majority of the film.

So those were the two good choices the director made. I will also go on to say the costuming and cinematography were don't quite competently, the Hitler look alike was quite good, the actual history was followed closer (note I mean it was closer not 100% accurate) to the actual history then I expected, and Eddy Izzard was arguably the best actor in the film.

Now that that's over with. Hold on to your hats folks because this is the part of the review where I begin getting mean.

It doesn't matter what genre, what time period, or whats going on in a movie we need to connect to the characters emotionally in order for us to relate to a story, and more importantly for us to be able to internalize our experience with the movie.

The single biggest flaw in "Valkyrie" is that you don't feel connected with any of the characters. The movie is severely lacking in emotion, there were only two or three times in the movie when anyone was acting as something other then a very strong manly man. The movie ran over the events, somehow forgetting to add a human element to the story. If this story was told properly I should have been crying my eyes out at the end of the movie when all of them were being executed, or committing suicide. I'm going to be honest here, it does not take much to make me cry at a movie, but I did not shed a single tear at Valkyrie. I mean this was a story about really heroic men, who risked everything to do what was right, and despite their best efforts they did not succede and evil prevailed for a bit longer. That should make me cry.

The director made a very poor choice in choosing to show us only heroes, instead of showing us men. Of course we know that they were brave for dong what they did, but all we saw was bravery. While the movie did a good job at building suspense we didn't see moments where the men were softer and joking around, we did not see them really interact with their family, and for the most part we didn't even see them show true fear.

Maybe I should make that last statement a bit clearer. Eddy Izzard was the only man in the entire cast that seemed like he was going to chicken out, the only man that seemed terrified to be taking part in this, the only person with real weakness. Everyone else shows a small range of emotion from confident, to worried, to somewhat miffed. Tom Cruise retains the same strong expression for almost the entire film, we never see the fear, we never see real anger, we never see a moment where he thinks he is going to fail until the very end and even then he has his head held up high. For those of you that have seen the movie take a look at one of the last shots, the expression Tom Cruise shows when he is supposed to be dead is the same one he shows during every other sequence.

We see attempts to put some emotion into the film we see a brief moment where Von Strauffenberg is at home with the kids, but he does not really interact with them. Instead of staying with the the Von Strauffenberg family as they are together for a rare scene huddled in a bomb shelter, the director chooses to spend a lot of time on a record player playing "Flight of the Valkyries" which just so happened to turn on when the city was getting bombed. The smarter choice would have been to use the time to show him as a great father comforting his kids and wife as bombings went on around them, but instead he decides to show a possible way Claus Von Strauffenberg came up with the idea of Operation Valkyrie. There is another time when we see his wife run back and give him a passionate kiss before she leaves (in one of the few emotional moments of the movie) but we barely even see his face as Tom Cruise once again gives the same "I'm a strong manly man" expression. Throughout the movie he keeps trying to get a call through to his family but we never hear the urgency in his voice, we never see the moment where he realizes he will never see his family again. There are ways to play a very strong character who reveals little of what they really feel, but this is not it. We never see a hint of what is going on in the mans head, we never see a softened expression in his eyes.

In short all we see is the invulnerable bronze statue of a perfect hero, when what we should be seeing is a great man who did great things but still had his moments of weakness. At the start of the film there is a scene in a church where motives are spoon fed to us in very pretty lines about why Von Strauffenberg is doing what he is doing, it is not really revisited or expanded upon. This move made a big mistake when they gave us a few good lines to tell us what was going on instead of actually showing us the more emotional and intellectual aspects of the film.

If the Director did not feel comfortable making this an emotional epic, then he could have gone another path and made this a super paranoid thriller. I mean you have all the workings for one rebellion in a repressive regime, the good guys and the bad guys wear the same uniform, you never know who will turn on you. But wait that would involve the ability to show emotion on screen as well, guess it was out of the question for this director after all.

On second thought maybe the greatest flaw of the film was Tom Cruise himself. To use the words of another critic he gave a "Distractingly bad" performance. It was a true one note performance with a piece that had the potential to be a fricking symphony. Not only did he play Von Strauffenberg as a man who showed no emotion, he also played him without a hint of subtlety. There is a scene in an office where they are talking about very treasonous stuff, and the other actors are trying to speak with double meanings, Tom cruise just speaks as if he is having a normal conversation. There is a part in the movie where Tom Cruise turns to another character and basically says "I'm involved in serious acts of treason, you in?" I mean seriously if Von Strauffenberg was that blunt he would have been killed long before operation Valkyrie. I'm sure he was an honest and honorable man who didn't like to lie or be dishonest, but if your involved in a rebellion against an evil overlord, you have to be smart about it and tell half truths, or spend a lot of time figuring out who is trustworthy sometimes.

I have to say the sound in the movie was poorly done. When a soundtrack is well done it should be completely invisible, except for the few moments when we need music to take over and really show emotion. Often I found myself distracted by the soundtrack, I could hear it trying to make me feel something during the scenes but it never accomplished it's task. This is a movie with a lot of whispering, sometimes the background noises during the scenes really took over and it was difficult to focus in on what was being said. The very emotional last words spoken by Claus Von Strauffenberg "Long live Sacred Germany" should have been packed with emotion, instead they were shouted out so quickly you could barely understand them.

I am being really harsh here because this was a story with so much potential. Nothing pisses me off more then something with tremendous potential that does not live up to even half of it's worth. Instead of creating a movie that was emotional and inspirational, there was a movie just suspenseful enough to keep your attention.
There is so much that could have been done with the story of a truly great man, instead "Valkyrie" passes by as a tolerable suspense movie.

I can't say I was truly disappointed because I predicted it would be bad, but after doing some research on the real Operation Valkyrie I have to say that the brave men and women who took part in this deserved a better story.