Marvin Dorfler

I was nodding off in the first hour of the "planning" stages; the exposition, etc. Usually I am a big Cruise fan having grown up on RISKY BUSINESS, THE COLOR OF MONEY, TOP GUN, COCKTAIL & DAYS OF THUNDER (Plus I have the same last name but spelled differently--my last name Kruse came from Krusowitz!) and I really wanted to like VALKYRIE hoping that Cruise would build off of his TROPIC THUNDER cameo but the movie just doesn't hit its stride. And although as an audience, you already know whats going to happen (we also knew the ending of TITANIC); you sit and wait, and wait....and wait. It really is unavoidable to NOT NOTICE that no one is speaking in a German accent--not even trying to get it down. A lot of British & plain old American accents. Cruise sounds no different in this film than he did in say VANILLA SKY or the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movies. I don't get it--seems like Gwyneth Paltrow got that British accent down in SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE, Brad Pitt got the, I think it was "caravan" accent in SNATCH, hell, Eddie Murphy nailed the stereotypical Old-Jewish Man in COMING TO AMERICA---and many other examples that I can't think of b/c its so early in the morning! Save for Tom Wilkinson; the supporting cast is just eh. Cruise's wife and kids are just...there. For me, being of Hebrew descent--there was nothing at stake. I mean it was pretty damn late in the war (1945) for OPERATION: VALKYRIE to go into action. 6 million were already dead....

I think that this will be considered a dud on all accounts and will have decent numbers through the holiday weekend before a steep decline. Singer's staff did as good a job w/ the production design as I guess they could. Every scene (except the beginning in Tunisia), is a grey day w/ drowned out palette's and the movie just looks plain old and like it was thrown together to meet a deadline. Maybe I will give it a second look on BD, maybe not. The book it is based has so far been far more intriguing. Bottom line is that the damage done by Hitler was already done which left me feeling like there was just nothing at stake; nothing or no character for me to really invest in...

--Dorfler

Behold the Collection: http://batkruse.dvdaf.com/

dhmac

Operation Valkyrie (spelled "Walküre" in German) went into action in 1944, not 1945, only about 6 weeks after D-Day. I'm not sure how many total lives would have been saved overall if the War in Europe ended 9 months earlier, but it would've been in the millions.

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whotony

you know Cruise isn't his real last name?

Thomas Cruise Mapother

IIG

The lack of accents really took away frome an already mediocre movie.

Buttmunker

Pardon me, but its Thomas Cruise Mapother the Fourth!

Gerry P.

The characters aren't Germans immigrants living in the US speaking English with a German accent. They are pretending to be Germans in Germany speaking their native tongue, so there is no reason for an accent.

chris_sc77

^Just like in Schindlers List?

Mole177

the first half was tough... I was close to walking out.

dhmac

...and the second half was what? Good? Bad? Ugly???

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Gerry P.

... and Hogan's Heroes. What you are advocating is a corny Hollywood cliche. The qualifier for Schindler's List is that the main characters are of different ethnicities and are supposed to be speaking German with a particular accent (Hungarian, Polish, Yiddish, etc.) so the use of accents makes some kind of sense.

p.s. Are you disappointed when you watch a version of Hamlet where the actors are not using Danish accents?

toddly6666

This movie was awesome. It's basically:

1. Nazi James Bond
or
2. Mission Impossible 4 (that's what it's titled in Germany.....)

It's a totally entertaining thrilling flick. Everyone is good in it, including Tom Cruise. It doesn't matter at all that they are all talking in their normal voices. It's one of the best films of the year. And it's all true story.

It's funny that the film had half of the cast of Holland's BLACK BOOK as well...

CloverClover

I agree, this was great, very solid. Singer and McQuarrie as a director/writing team are perfectly matched, the classy,meticulous filmmaking and smart/intricate writing... in tone they are also perfectly aligned. Just read on imdb that they went to high school together, very interesting.. the bond shows in both their movies together, usual suspects, and now valkyrie

jfoobar

It wouldn't surprise me at all if Singer + McQuarrie > Cruise.

Patman

I was a little bored by this film (sure, it didn't help knowing the outcome) especially in the first half, but I think it's a combination of so-so directing, and a script that isn't that interesting. The pacing of the film also felt abrupt at times, and the sprawling size of the cast did little to provide a good enough hook for me to fully engage my attention given the stakes of the operation that would unfold in the film. The script just isn't strong enough to elicit a lot of suspense from me.

See it at a matinee if you're a WWII history buff.

I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.

jessecrx

My thought's EXACTLY.

In fact at the beginning of the film you hear Cruise speaking in German and then fading into plain English. I took that as a sign from the director that we(the audience)assume that they were speaking German...just translated to English for our convenience.

As for the movie. My wife and I absolutely loved it. We were glued to the seats and to the screen the whole time...the rest of the theater was really into it as well, for not one person got up to pee or even made a sound during the quietest parts of the film.

When it ended all I heard was "I liked it" "wow, that was really good" etc etc.

A very pleasant surprise

wlmowery

This was my thoughts as well. I thought they handled the language translation issues well. The opening has the text on screen in german and fading into english. The dialog does the same.

Overall, a good not great flick. This was 1 in a 3 movie marathon on the day after Christmas. Enjoyed the historical grandeur of some of the parts. Liked the tension in some scenes (even knowing how the whole thing turns out). Thought many of the supporting cast were excellent. Cruise did fine. A typical Cruise performance. Not awarding winning but effective.

I would give this a rating of B or B+.


PS: Biggeest distraction was the lady with the infant three seats down from us. Overall a well-behaved infant, but the hiccups for about 10 minutes sure were distracting. Then dad had to check his texts about 3/5ths of the way through the movie. I give this family a D-.

I still cannot fathom how someone can rationalize taking an infant to a theater. First, you cannot guarantee that the child will not become a distraction to others, even if the child is extremely well behaved. In this case the child was well behaved and only made noise during the hiccup incident. Had the family not been sitting next to our family, I may not have been disturbed, and many of those in our theater for this show undoubtedly were not distrubed by the child. However, they were sitting there, I was disturbed for a significant portion of the film, and I feel like this impacted my overall enjoyment of the film. I paid more money than the family with the infant (unless they paid for the infant, which I doubt) to see the film of my choice, and I have an expectation that I should be able to watch the film without the introduction of a potential serious distraction by third parties. Second, the volume levels in the theater may be damaging to an infants developing aural centers. I tested the pre-shows volume levels using a decibel meter (don't ask) and was getting a solid 70 during the "quiet" pre-show music and clips. During the explosion scenes, I would easily imagine decibel levels in excess of 95-105.

My 15 y/o daughter commented on the situation afterwords, as well. At least she seems to have learned some of the manners we tried to instill.