Into the heart of the enemy
Bryan Singer has now officially been forgiven for Superman Returns. Going back to his character driven roots and away from superheroes, Singer has put together one of the more powerful stories from World War II. Valkyrie is the story of Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a German war hero who realizes the wrong doing of his leader the infamous Adolf Hitler. Not wanting to stand for it, he gathers together Ally sympathizers to put together plans to assassinate Hitler before the Allied Forces invade their motherland.
The story is really quite simple and Singer keeps it together from beginning to end. Honestly speaking, that might be the slight downfall of the film. According to some History Channel documentaries, that channel loves WWII, there were more than three plots to take care of Hitler. Each time one failed it was all do to timing or chance. Singer seems to leave a bit out of the equation for the audience and substitute the missing moments with a bit more drama and intensity. I think that most critics that didn’t favor this film certainly had an issue with this. With that said, I do understand why Singer did it. First, you can’t have multiple attempts at failure in one film; it takes too long. Second, if you’re going to convince people to sympathize with nazi soldiers you’re going to have to add drama and intensity to the story. It’s a tough gig trying to make people who are normally not looked at in a favorable light look like roses/heroes. So, you must keep it all simple and Singer does.
With that said, let’s talk about the performances. First, let’s get the language thing out of the way. When I saw the trailer for Valkyrie I found it extremely odd that Germans were speaking American and British English. Forgivable? Kind of, but it all depended on what they did to transition from German to English. I had feared that they just went into the film with English speaking parts, but Singer surprised me by giving Cruise some German lines and then zooming in and changing over to English. It’s something that they used in The Hunt for Red October to transition from Russian to English. Anyway, it was nice. With the language barrier out of the way, the actors seemed incredibly more comfortable, even Cruise did. Once they got started they took all the stereotypes of WWII Germany and threw it out the window. Cruise, especially, did a fantastic job at convincing the audience that he was very tired of how things were going and tired of seeing Germans killed for a mad man’s plight. As Stauffenberg, he took on a severely injured Colonel and pulled it off with great ease. His passion and drive, but also fear of being caught, was extraordinary to see come to life on screen. Cruise created fantastic tension and owned the role. As for his supporting cast, everyone did a fantastic job, but this is a category that really showed the simplicity of the story. As the viewer, you never had time to get to know anyone. The story moved so fast and the characters just seemingly appeared. They were shallow at best, which didn’t give us (the audience) a lot to connect with. You understood what they had to do, and why they might have been hesitant, but if we had been given a bit more motivation from each (maybe even introduced to their families or lives) it would have been an even deeper story.
Excellent job by Cruise, though.
In the end, the movie speaks different volumes. The best part about it is that it’s a compact version of what really happened. You get the beefy details without anything dragging it down. The lackluster part of the film comes from the shallow characters. We don’t know the supporting cast’s characters well enough to feel bad for them, or to see what’s on their mind. The collective group was brought together to stop one evil and all we get in the end is one man’s view of it. Give the movie another 45 minutes and you probably have a lot more emotion and depth in this film. Without it, you get a good film that could have been much better.
Still looking good, even when you’re bad
WWII Germany is gorgeous. Singer’s cinematographer did a fantastic job capturing the vibrant youth of a destructive country. The places were gorgeous, the one scene where Stauffenberg says goodbye to his wife was simply breathtaking. It was all enhanced by seeing it in HD. Blu-ray still dominates the world with visuals and even more so with the sound. Coming in at DTS-HD 5.1, you get all the tension from John Ottman and great action sequences that will please both the ears and eyes. All-around, one of the better looking 20th Century Fox movies.
As for features, here’s what you’re looking at:
– Commentary by Tom Cruise, Bryan Singer, and Christopher McQuarrie
– Commentary by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander
– Featurettes:
* The Journey to Valkyrie
* The Road to Resistance: A Visual Guide
* The African Front Sequence
* Taking to the Air
* Recreating Berlin
* 92nd Street Y: Reel Pieces with Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer
* The Valkyrie Legacy
Disc Two
– Digital Copy
All in all, it’s a good set of features. I love it when a movie comes stacked with featurettes and good commentary. Valkyrie has both. You will like the documentary on the legacy and the story of the real-life situation.