Valkyrie, round 1.

"After a long takeoff, Valkyrie finally takes flight as a thriller in its second half but never soars very high," writes Variety's Todd McCarthy. "Bryan Singer's long-awaited account of the near-miss assassination of Adolf Hitler by a ring of rebel German army officers on July 20, 1944, has visual splendor galore, but is a cold work lacking in the requisite tension and suspense. This second production from Tom Cruise and Paula Wagner at United Artists will do better than the first, Lions for Lambs, but is a decidedly odd choice for Christmas Day release."

Updated through 12/16.

"Working against the known outcome of this plot, director Bryan Singer - reunited with his The Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie and his writing partner Nathan Alexander - manages to maintain suspense and involvement in the unfolding conspiracy." Kirk Honeycutt in the Hollywood Reporter: "With such World War II movies as Defiance and Good also on tap this month, there is no doubt the Nazis continue to provide fodder for movie producers. How great the fascination among moviegoers is another question."

"Apart from an opening air attack sequence, Valkyrie is fundamentally a film about back-room plotting, not big-stroke action," writes Brent Simon for Screen. "There are a few striking visual markers - uncradled phones and slamming typewriter keys - that hint at building tension, but Singer also misses key opportunities to inject a little energy and visual flash into the story, as exemplified by a clumsily-staged arrest sequence late in the film. Valkyrie at times feels emotionally constrained, too invested in speechifying."

Earlier (and recommended): Rob Davis in Daily Plastic.

Via filmz.de, you can - if you read German, that is - follow the bizarre saga of the Cruise family's adventures in Germany, beginning in the fall of last year: the villa, the visit to the Scientology center, the remodeling of an entire floor of the Hotel Adlon, the injuries and reshoots, the Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung's weird and icky embrace and Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck's completely off-the-wall argument that Tom Cruise will save Germany in the eyes of the world.

Update: "The problem with Valkyrie is really simple," argues David Poland: "it was a terrible idea when they started and nothing that a large group of very talented people did could overcome the core problem of this story. It's a movie about a vain loser that doesn't want to be about failure."

Updates, 12/13: "'This was my shot at a small movie, and I blew it,' Mr Singer said with a laugh during a Thanksgiving week visit to New York. 'Maybe I just discovered I'm a big-movie guy. Even when I was making Usual Suspects, which I shot in 35 days for $6 million, I had to have this giant boat, this police car, explosions, all that stuff. No matter what the circumstances are I tend to amplify.'" Mark Harris on Valkyrie's making in the the New York Times.

"Valkyrie is a well-made, entertaining thriller that had me on the edge of my seat in its second half," blogs Variety's Anne Thompson. "It's old-fashioned, in the sense that Hollywood used to make more movies like this: straight-ahead, engrossing World War II action dramas that pit an alliance of noble heroes against pitiless Nazi villains."

Update, 12/14: Online viewing tip. Cruise on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos: "Find out what Tom Cruise has to say about Sean Penn, Jack Nicholson, Robert Duvall, his role in Tropic Thunder and Scientology!" Thanks, Jerry.

Update, 12/15: "Last night, at the discussion following the 92nd Street Y's Reel Pieces premiere of Valkyrie, Tom Cruise was asked no fewer than three times about how his eye patch affected his performance as the movie's Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg." Lane Brown reports for Vulture.

Update, 12/16: Spiegel Online gathers reactions to Valkyrie in the German press.

Posted by dwhudson at December 11, 2008 7:08 AM