Valkyrie, round 2.

Both the New Republic's Christopher Orr and Slate's Dana Stevens begin their reviews with a run-down of the long and troubled run-up to Valkyrie's release, finally happening tomorrow. "The movie still fails by the standards of $100 million Hollywood star action vehicles, and by the standards of World War II Oscar-bait epics," writes Orr. "But by the standards of anticipated career-crushing trainwrecks, it's pretty good."

As Stephen Metcalf "suggests in his glorious reading of Tom Cruise-as-market-bubble, the notion of the stolidly perky Cruise playing a one-eyed, one-handed would-be Hitler assassin is just inherently funny," writes Dana Stevens. "Given all these obstacles, Valkyrie comes off surprisingly well.... For a thriller with a thoroughly foreordained outcome, Valkyrie does a pretty good job at making the viewer's palms sweat. Especially so soon after the tedious pieties of The Reader, I'm not sure I want more from my Nazi holiday viewing than that."

Updated through 12/29.

"Director Bryan Singer drums up some tension around the actual attempt (via explosive)," writes Dennis Harvey in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. "But that's 15 minutes at most in the middle of a movie you realize just moments in was probably doomed to be a flat, pompous bore even before shooting started."

"Singer's first non-superhero picture in a decade is more respectful than the Nazi-themed (and underrated) Apt Pupil; indeed, it initially strains for portent, as if running on excess gravitas from his serious but sly X-Men movies." Jesse Hassenger in the L Magazine: "Once the conspiracy gets going, though, Valkyrie settles into swift B-movie territory: kinetic pans and meaningful glances abound in a sort of super-retro Mission: Impossible, and bonus suspense mounts over how the coup must inevitably fall apart. Valkyrie doesn't have many layers... but its pulpy defiance is crisp, succinct, and oddly satisfying."

"Valkyrie's across-the-board miscasting (and accompanying one-note performances) doesn't do the story any favors," writes Nick Schager in Slant, "but then again, neither does Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander's script, which skimps on character relationships and motivations - aside from implausibly casting every other Nazi party member as a closet Hitler hater - in favor of configuring the tale as a straightforward thriller."

"Even when saying goodbye to his wife and kids for a final time, Stauffenberg never seems like a man for whom there's anything at stake - maybe missed dinner reservations." Robert Wilonsky in the Voice: "Valkyrie feels like another installment in the never-ending franchise - not just the action-movie one, but the Tom Cruise one. Like the operation itself, it's a good idea - just not well-executed."

"[T]here's a gaping hole at the center of Valkyrie, and his name is Tom Cruise," writes Alonso Duralde at MSNBC. "He's the only actor in the film not doing either a British or a German accent... and he spends every moment on screen glowering and purring angrily. The actor appears lost without being able to launch his usual charm offensive, and whatever dark sides that Oliver Stone was once able to plumb from this performer seems nonexistent. If only his work here had an ounce of the nasty pleasures of Cruise's Tropic Thunder cameo."

Similarly, Joshua Rothkopf in Time Out New York: "When Valkyrie tightens the screws like a poor man's Munich, it's decent enough. But what I wouldn't have paid to see the Cruise of Tropic Thunder pull off another brilliant cameo, raging in his bunker behind the button mustache."

"I have a theory," offers Amie Simon at the Siffblog: "if you're aiming to create a great film with all German characters - maybe filling your cast with famous Brits (Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Tom Wilkinson, Terence Stamp - and... Eddie Izzard) and putting an American (not just any American actor - the Tom Cruise) in the starring role is not the wisest move."

As alternative or complementary viewing, Joe Leydon recommends Hava Kohav Beller's Oscar-nominated documentary The Restless Conscience: Resistance to Hitler Inside Germany, 1933 - 1945.

Earlier: Round 1.

Updates, 12/25: "Mr Singer appears to have taken cues here from Black Book, Paul Verhoeven's World War II romp, but he's too serious to make such vaudeville work," writes Manohla Dargis in the New York Times. "Stauffenberg, who hated Hitler but worshipped the Reich, sacrificed himself on the dual altar of nationalism and militarism, which makes him a more ambiguous figure than the one drawn in Valkyrie. He's a complex character, too complex for this film, which like many stories of this type, transforms World War II into a boy's adventure with dashing heroes, miles of black leather and crane shots of German troops in lockstep formation that would make Leni Riefenstahl flutter."

"A man who is struggling to take down the old order." Philip Kennicott in the Washington Post: "It's hard to know whether this film is channeling Nietzsche or L Ron Hubbard. Those who harbor dark fears of Scientology may want to watch the details closely: Does the film downplay von Stauffenberg's Christianity or acknowledge it in passing? Does it equate the conspirators with some kind of secret order with cult-like tendencies? Or is all of that entirely too much to read into a Tom Cruise film?"

"Valkyrie can't decide if it wants to be a sturdily constructed modern-style thriller (McQuarrie also wrote Singer's first big hit, The Usual Suspects) or an old-timey suspense entertainment packed with movie conventions," writes Stephanie Zacharek in Salon. "Singer throws in a little from Column A and a little from Column B, and not all of it works."

"[T]he film is a minor Christmas miracle," argues the Oregonian's Michael Russell: "It succeeds on its own terms, despite the gossip hounds' best blood-sniffing efforts, and dares to be an entertainment rather than a statement."

No, counters Nathan Rabin at the AV Club: "Despite its potential to be a turkey for the ages, Singer's blandly proficient historical thriller is fatally forgettable."

Updates, 12/26: James Rocchi talks with McQuarrie for Cinematical.

"I never once (for a second) 'bought' Tom Cruise as a grizzled, burnt-out, one-armed German army officer in the new wartime thriller Valkyrie," writes Scott Weinberg at Cinematical, "but because he's a movie star who knows how to carry a flick, he still anchors the tale with a strong and crisp screen presence. And while, yeah, it is a little distracting to hear high-ranking German soldiers speaking with American, British and Irish accents, the simple fact is that Valkyrie is a very slick old-school-style adventure movie. In some ways it feels like a perfectly enjoyable mid-50s war movie that's been re-made with only the finest in modern cinematic technology. The plot is pure potboiler, but the look is grade-A Hollywood."

Updates, 12/27: Rachel Abramowitz talks with McQuarrie, Cruise and Singer for the Los Angeles Times.

Michael Russell interviews McQuarrie.

Update, 12/29: "You knew it would be bad, and it is," writes Fox News film critic Roger Friedman in a piece that's taken many by surprise. "I'm more concerned that Valkyrie could represent a new trend in filmmaking: Nazi apologia."

"It's silly to expect 'necessariness' from any movie, and there's no crime in handsomely assembling a moving diorama of a fascinating historical event," writes Justin Stewart in Reverse Shot. "Effective 'thrillers with import' that avoid proselytizing might be only a master's game; successes from Army of Shadows to Munich show how skillfully it can be done. Singer's not there yet, obviously; his film is closer to Enemy at the Gates or Hart's War. His treatment of the 20 July Plot of 1944 is as slick and vapid as The Usual Suspects. It's Apt Pupil meets X-Men and probably exactly what he was hired to make."

New York's David Edelstein doesn't seem to be aware of the historical background of the animosity between Germany and Scientology, but fine, he gets to crack his little joke. Then: "Valkyrie doesn't whip you up like that Jewish vigilante avenger picture Defiance, but in this season of throat-grabbing Holocaust movies, its gentlemanliness is most welcome."

"Character acting is, of course, one of the four things that the British still do supremely well, the others being soldiering, tailoring, and getting drunk in public, but you can have too much of a good thing, and there were points in Valkyrie when I felt that I was watching a slightly outré installment of the Harry Potter series," writes Anthony Lane, and the New Yorker lets it slide.

Posted by dwhudson at December 24, 2008 7:00 AM