Valkyrie is directed by Bryan Singer and is based off of the real life story of Operation Valkyrie in which Colonel Von Stuaffenburg (Tom Cruise) tried to assassinate Adolf Hitler but given that it was a military operation things can always go wrong.
Valkyrie is a well made thriller with nice direction by Singer first off, he makes sure that there is plenty of breathing space to explain the complicated nature of the operation as well as flesh out the people involved that made up the operation as well as the effects and aftermath of the plan and as a result the film while taking its time with the storyline doesn’t allow itself also to get too long winded and overstay its welcome.
Secondly the period design of the film is quite nice with the multiple flags, uniforms, lavish hall sets that feel very nicely detailed and I particularly liked the uniforms as for me they felt very authentic plus I loved all the old timey communication devices and the overall sound design was quite good but mainly because I’d been watching Dunkirk I did get a little more jumpy than normal when guns went off on the soundtrack.
And lastly the ensemble cast of Cruise, Terence Stamp (and I did kneel before him when he first came on), Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, Thomas Krestchmann (Baron Von Struckker) among others were quite good Cruise in particular really surprised me here as I’ve been hit and miss with him over the years but here I thought his smarts and charisma were put to nice use here no doubt due to both Singer and Chris McQuarrie knowing how to use him and play to his strengths as a performer the others perform as you would expect them too and no one was really bad here I thought.
And so that was Valkyrie a well made, nicely paced thriller with good performances that is worth watching for World War 2 buffs out there, 3 out of 5.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment