Valkyrie - Discussion, Grading, Commentary ***SPOILERS***

[Skywalker]

The pacing problems in my opinion were due to adherence to fact. The failure of Stauffenberg's attempt introduces an early anticlimax, not a ratcheting of tension. Screenwriters are notorious for rewriting history so that it plays better on screen. It seems we really expect variations on the old stories rather than genuine realism. Indeed, we are so dominated by our stylistic expectations that we can reject it because it so ungainly and unartistic.

What's weird is that the movie after that point worked for me. Watching the plan come together, yet unravel at the same time was entertaining and tightly paced from the bombing to the very end. It was the pacing earlier in the movie that seemed to be inconsistent.

That's kind of how it was for me. I thought the first half was a little bit slow and uneven, though I was still interested the whole way through. Once the plot was finally executed, I was pretty much riveted the entire way from that point on.

Very good movie, overall. It's too bad Cruise has such a poor reputation these days, I kind of feel like Valkyrie went a bit overlooked because of his involvement.

 

[Gaith]

I'd been waiting to see it for a long time, probably a year, and I definitely enjoyed it. A solid B+... Reminded me a bit of United 93... and it'd make a pretty cool double-bill with Downfall, seeing how healthy Hitler looks here and how harried he looked in that movie.

And %^&*! the whole accents thing. Take HBO's "Rome", a fantastic series - it's got Irish and Scottish actors doing English accents, because, as everyone knows, the Ancient Romans spoke the Queen's English. (By the way, Valkyrie's Hitler was Rome's Cicero! I didn't recognize him at all!) It was mildly weird to have most actors but cruise speaking with British accents, I suppose, but it didn't bother me in the slightest.

What's strange is when reviews accuse Cruise of not emoting enough. As Ebert points out, he's playing a Colonel in uniform almost the whole movie; there's not much emoting to be done there. I thought Cruise did fine. There were some laughs in my theater at Cruise's "Heil Hitler!" moment, but I'm pretty sure they were laughs of "he showed him", not snickering.