Valkyrie
The true story of the Germans who tried to take down Hitler
Tags: Valkyrie (dvd) Categories: DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Jun 5th, 2009
Tom Cruise is Colonel Claus Von Stauffenberg, a German military officer who believes that killing civilians isn’t in the nation’s best interests. It turns out he isn’t alone in this belief, and finds himself involved in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler and bring an end to the madness that the Nazi party has wreaked upon the world.
They don’t succeed. Sorry if that ruined the ending of the film for you.
A great cast helps support and ground Tom Cruise’s portrayal of the man who would ultimately die for his cause. Terrence Stamp, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, and Eddie Izzard are just some of the recognizable names and faces in Valkyrie. Staying very true to the events as they actually happened, we see the motivations for the people as well as the fear of being discovered.
There is a natural tension that is present, because these people are going up against the Nazi regime from within. We also know that the plot is going to fail based on history, so much of the tension is taken away. Bryan Singer tries to bring as much of the human emotion forward to engage the viewer and reintroduce as much of the tension as possible, and that is when the film works best. Other times there is a much more “thriller” aspect where Valkyrie seems to be a fairly standard political/action film and this is where the film doesn’t work as well as it should.
The questions is really whether or not Valkyrie is enjoyable. Valkyrie was well done, but I am having a hard time recommending it unless you are interested in seeing a dramatic representation of a little told chapter in World War II.
As for special features, the Blu-ray packs in quite a lot. The DVD gets a very truanced version of the special features, so the Blu-ray version really is the way to go.
We get two audio commentaries, one with Tom Cruise, Bryan Singer and Chris McQuarrie (co-writer), and the other with McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander (co-writer). These are decent tracks, but in all honesty, I didn’t listen to them both all the way through. Instead I sampled them both
One of the more interesting featurettes is a few minutes of Von Stauffenberg’s grandson taking viewers on a tour of the real locations throughout Berlin is a great piece that connects the audience with the events. Less interesting is an hour discussion with Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer and a moderator who seems to be “above” popular films and makes sure to plug her Newsweek article several times. A sense of inflated self-importance is not a good quality in an interviewer. A number of other featurettes examine the making of the film. Irritatingly, these are chopped up into separate pieces and there is no “play all” function. Really, these should have been strung together into a comprehensive examination of the film.
The Valkyrie Legacy is a documentary by Kevin Burns that examines the entire resistance, but paying particular attention to the July 20 movement. This piece alone would be worth a release on its own with interviews by a variety of scholars, survivors and their descendants, the documentary runs almost two hours and provides plenty of historical background starting with the fall of the country after World War I. It does touch on the film Vakyrie, but only briefly and simply as another chapter in the long saga of the actual events and their aftermath. This was a very informative documentary and well worth watching, more so, I think, than the film it is attached to, because it really gives the viewer a sense of what was going on and why over a long period of time.
Is Valkyrie worth picking up? Well, that depends on your tolerance for mock suspense when the outcome is already known in a World War II thriller. Certainly, though, if you are even remotely interested in aspects of the conflict that are little publicized, then Valkyrie would be worth renting – especially to watch the documentary afterwards.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
| + Documentary on the German resistance movement | 6.5 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- Artificial sense of tension - Lousy organization of special features |
|
| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| A decent telling of the story, but you need to be interested in it before the movie starts to get the most out of it. At the very least watch the 2 hour documentary that is attatched to it. | |
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Tags: Valkyrie (dvd)
Posted by Daniel "monk" Pelfrey on Jun 5th, 2009 and is filed under DVD/TV Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
