Big anticipation became big disappointment

Valkyrie Movie Review

By Travis Drewett

With a non-German cast, and what seemed like ten second conversations, Valkyrie is a movie that could have been made during the time of World War II…literally.

Valkyrie is about the fifteenth and last attempt to assassinate Hitler, which just by knowing the history, failed. It drops the audience in, what seems like, the middle of a storyline that has already been in progress. It progresses through the building point of the assassination and shows you everyone that conspired against Hitler. It skims across the surface of the subject matter and gives you an overall quick summary of the events that had taken place. A scene that seemed to capture the mind in this movie was at the very end, when the main character, Col. Stauffenburg (played by Tom Cruise), is executed by gunshot after yelling “Long live sacred Germany!” This scene was very powerful and well done by Mr. Cruise.

Valkyrie has a unique cast of actors, starring some of the talents of Tom Cruise Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighly, Terence Stamp, Kevin McNally, David Schofield, Christian Berkel, Jamie Parker, Edie Izzard, David Bamber (as Adolf Hitler), and many more. The director of this movie, Bryan Singer, had gone through many costly obstacles such as the building and finding of over 70 different sets.

In this movie, it begins with the oath that all Nazis had sworn, while a Nazi flag waved in the background. It then pans over to the journal of Colonel Stauffenburg, as he is writing about finding men who are brave enough to stand against Hitler and his army. Later on he ends up getting drawn into an organization that dislikes Hitler as much as he does, if not more. As the leader of the group gets arrested, Stauffenburg has a plan to get a truce with the Allied power, and have Hitler dead.

I think that one of the most intriguing things about the movie is the historical accuracy. There was no memorable musical soundtrack to this movie, however it did offer interesting little facts about the history of Col. Stauffingburg. Something that really caught my eye was the fact that his wife died in 2006, meaning that she had to have been at least one-hundred years old. It also gives a lesson that Hitler was not as crazy as he appeared, how he was actually mellow, but all the more dangerous.

Although it provides many things that may spark a persons interest, I definitely would not recommend this movie to either kids or adults. The characters are so blank, and the progression of the storyline is so fast, that if you blink, then you probably would miss half the movie. One thing for them to improve would be interacting with the characters more and making us feel some sort of connection with them so that we would feel bad when any of them die.