Well made and beautifully depicted

A very inspiring movie non the less!

Tom Cruise travels back in time to assassinate Hitler. Okay, that's not fair. Tom Cruise stars as Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg who leads a group of German Army officers who plot to kill Hitler.

This is by all accounts, a largely accurate retelling of the true story. It's a well-acted, great looking movie. It's exciting and interesting and Cruise is very good in his role. As I've stated before, he gets criticized unfairly too often. He is one of the last true "movie stars".

Then why have I not rated this higher? It's because it looks far too slick. I may have watched too many WWII documentaries in my time or recreations of events starring no-name actors. It may not be fair, but it curbed the impact this otherwise very good film had on me. As it progressed, I kept waiting for the story to veer from reality because it looks so "Hollywood". It never did and I give it credit for that. But my experience was still dulled by my past big-budget movie "conditioning".

Like standard insomnia, Valkyrie is a text book case study that didn't put me to sleep.

There's a lot of interesting information in this true story, but they replaced the passion with melodrama so it comes off more as reality TV than really cinematic.

A somewhat overlooked entry in the Tom Cruise filmography. I saw it in the cinema and never really thought about it since.

Upon rewatch, a few things stand out - solid construction, solid performances, solid plot, yet ultimately unremarkable.

Could it be we know the arc of history too well? That you'd need to rewrite that in a Tarantino flourish for it to shock the viewer? Is it the dour and sad nature of the whole thing weighing over the whole proceedings?

I can't say. But what I will say is that this is a hugely odd choice for Tom Cruise to undertake. Hats off to him for going off-piste but it doesn't rank as one of his great successes. He's as dedicated as always but it doesn't catch the soul - like Inglorious Basterds was able to - do the whole thing just doesn't quite work for me.


7/10

Too much Tom Cruise, too many cliches for 121 minutes, too little real history.

Maybe it is because I prefer movies about _"more realistic"_ people, but the course of events in this one was pretty close to the Marvel-style movies (despite the fact the film is based on real events).

Fantastic movie. Tom Cruise dedicates himself to the role as per usual.