Valkyrie (2008)

VERDICT:
3/10 Great Excuses to Rewrite History

Is it worse to see a crappy movie with a free ticket or a ticket you actually paid for? Something to think about. Really wish I had that free ticket back.

Valkyrie is about a German colonel under Hitler’s command that, along with a small group of other he-man Hitler-haters, puts together a plan to assassinate Adolf and clear their own names in the process. I wonder if it’s gonna work…

And that right there is the problem with Valkyrie. Every person who’s going into this movie knows exactly how it’s going to end. Hitler lives, so Tom Cruise and his buddies are all in deep shit.

Not spoiling the movie for you. World history spoiled it for you if anything.

The entire plot is a slow boil of tension leading up to the assassination attempt…and then it doesn’t work. So what’s the point of watching it then if that’s the payoff? The movie just ends up being the story of how all these anti-Nazi Nazis blew a golden opportunity, and you know it right from the start. The whole time I was watching this in the theater I was saying to myself, “I wonder how Tom Cruise is going to die at the end of this?” Pretty sure everyone else was, too.

While it’s not a standout script by any means, it does have good intentions. It beats you over the head with its message that not all Nazis were bad, that some actually stood up and fought for what was right. And while that’s great, I’m all for the good Nazis, was anyone really aching for a movie that finally allowed us to sympathize with the Nazi party? Yeah, I wasn’t either.

And if you’re going to make a movie where the plot is essentially null and void, you’re going to need one hell of an actor to carry the rest of the movie so that the audience doesn’t hate the finished product. Even though I didn’t hate this movie, Tom Cruise was not the man for the job. He’s definitely got his moments in his career, but I’ve never seen a movie with him in it and said to my good buddy Fred, “That movie would have sucked…if it wasn’t for Tom Cruise.” Same story here.

Should have cast Mickey Rourke. Always cast Mickey Rourke.

Director Bryan Singer does a satisfactory job, but he can do a lot better. For God’s sake, he did The Usual Suspects and the first two X-Men movies. Those are all awesome movies. Get back to your roots, Bryan. We miss you.

Now, what would have made this a good movie is if the attempt did work.

“What?”

That’s right, screw history! The bomb goes off, Hitler’s mustache flies clear off his face, and his little, hunchbacked, ragdoll body rockets up to the moon. Tom Cruise ends World War II, all those bad nazis get killed off, and I don’t know…Marty McFly shows up in his DeLorean to celebrate. Roll credits.

Who wouldn’t want to see Hitler get taken out like that?

But since beggars can’t be choosers and I wasn’t allowed to write the script, Valkyrie ends up being a pretty disappointing movie. It’s not disappointing in the sense that I had any expectations to meet whatsoever, but isn’t it just disappointing to watch someone “walking the Green Mile” per se?

All I’m saying is look out for Aiden R.’s remake: Valkyrie: Hitler’s Fucked.

Hello, Hollywood!