Oh, Bryan Singer's beleaguered Valkyrie. From multiple release date changes, to trouble with Germany, to rumors of doctoring historical photos, this movie has been plagued with setbacks and bad press for a long time. With equal parts curiosity and trepidation, I awaited a real trailer for the film, which is now opening Dec. 26. Now that the trailer is here, it looks better than I expected.
Visually, I love the look of this movie so far. Singer directed The Usual Suspects (and X-Men, Superman Returns and X2), and with Valkyrie it appears that he has again captured an eerie, ominous tone. What isn't working for me is Tom Cruise whom I simply don't find believable in this role (the list of supporting actors, however, is promising: Bill Nighy, Eddie Izzard, Kenneth Branagh, and more). Cruise plays a high-ranking German officer (with an American accent . . ?) who plots to assassinate Hitler during the height of WWII. The code name for the assassination plan is "Valkyrie." To check out the new trailer, read more.
Patrizia Pepe
La Perla
Playtex
I agree about Tom Cruise and it's not just the accent..
1Also, he says one German word in this trailer ("Führer") and he can't even pronounce that one correctly.
I don't think I'll be watching this... Then again, I usually like Matthias Schweighöfer (the young actor shown at 1:29), so I might still give it a chance when it's out on DVD.
I really don't like movies where the actors don't use a correct accent, or in this case an accent at all. I think that's part of the reason why I didn't care for Marie Antoinette. The non accent really doens't sell the characters for me. In this case, I don't get that TC is supposed to be German, he seems to be an American in Germany. It just kills the whole experience for me...
2Hmm, I don't really mind the lack of German accents (this probably has to do with growing up watching dubbed films and TV). I mean, if you think about it, the people they portray were actually speaking their native language, so an accent really doesn't make it any more authentic. On the other hand, it does bother me when the accents used are so clearly identifiable as belonging to a different region. I prefer it when they use some sort of "neutral" accent.
3I doubt this will be an award winner, but I still want to see it. The plot sounds interesting enough.
4i love anything tom cruise is in and i think that with all the talk about what's been going 'wrong' with filming will just make more people want to see it. i almost want to say that it was a gimmick to get more people interested - but that's just me.
5I've been wondering, is Stauffenberg's story known in the US at all or is it something basically only historians would have heard about? Here in Germany, people learn about the July 20 plot at school (We studied it in detail, which is another reason I'm not too eager to see the film. I don't see how the film could be all that exciting, if you already know all the details of the plot beforehand.) and pretty much everyone has heard about Stauffenberg and the other conspirators, but I would imagine that to be different abroad.
6Much better than I expected. It looks quite interesting and I didn't realize how large-scale the film is. One thing that always gets me is that beating rythm combined with flashing clips at the end of trailers- I hate that!
7Sumbum, everyone speaking English with a German accent would be just as unrealistic as everyone speaking with their own normal accents. Let it go. It's not going to be realistic unless everyone is speaking German. We have to engage in a willing suspension of disbelief, and it's probably easier to do if no one is trying to put on a silly-sounding (because it's not natural to them) accent.
8Buzz - It was Superman Returns, not Superman Begins.
Not to be
confused with Batman Begins.
Madchen - I never heard about this plot when I went to school here in America. I can understand why it would be very important to learn in Germany though. (P.S. I'm of German descent, among other things).
fashion4ward - I hate that really rapid succession of clips they do at the end of trailers too. It's really cliche by this point, and not a lot of movies can pull it off effectively.
I thought this trailer looked just okay, but Bryan Singer has done some fantastic movies in the past so I might catch it on DVD.
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