World War II: an environment of hate, destruction, and massacre – an environment established by notorious dictator Adolf Hitler. After bearing witness to the atrocities of Hitler’s rule, a small group of Nazi officers unite to defy Hitler’s regime with a lengthily planned operation: Valkyrie. Director Bryan Singer (X-Men, Superman Returns) brings this true story to life with Tom Cruise, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, among others.
After previously unsuccessful attempts to kill Hitler, Major General Tresckow (Branagh) enlists a war-damaged Colonel Stauffenberg (Cruise) to join the covert alliance against Hitler. Stauffenberg devises and lead a group of Nazi army officials (Nighy, Wilkinson, Izzard, etc.) in what seems a promising plan to assassinate Hitler via bomb and use Operation Valkyrie, Germany’s reserve army, to seize control of German government and to implement a new government upon Hitler’s death.
The original story behind Valkyrie is quite intriguing – it’s a story that many do not hear of: intimidating and seemingly collectively evil Nazis resisting Hitler’s ideals and diplomacies. The original Operation Valkyrie shows an interesting perspective of the Germans and sheds new light on WWII, showing that although shrouded in hate and violence, there was still a shred of humanity amongst the Nazi rule. Valkyrie gives filmmakers and artists alike many opportunities to show the motives and sentiments of those behind the operation and provides a lot of interesting material to work with and even create a masterpiece with.
Unfortunately, in this case, Valkyrie failed to take this promising idea and make a film that fulfilled its fullest potential. Although overall enjoyable, Valkyrie missed the mark on key elements of the film. Valkyrie was informative and showed the execution of the operation well, but it failed to touch on the main characters’ motives for assassinating Hitler. Even though it is quite obvious as to why one would want to eliminate Hitler, better character development and insight to the character’s sentiments would make for a more profound film. Because of this, Valkyrie is on the verge of becoming yet another standard WWII movie, save for its unique subject matter. On a more positive note, Valkyrie seems to lack the “stuffiness” sometimes found in historical films in the sense that it’s fast-paced, not too heavy and features a star-studded cast. While this makes it a film that could better appeal to the masses, this ultimately works against the film, leaving much to be desired in regards to the emotional and mental aspects of the film.
No comments:
Post a Comment