Valkyrie

Released by: MGM
Released on: 5/16/2009
Director: Bryan Singer
Cast: Tom Cruise
Year: 2009

The Movie:

Bryan Singer's first attempt at a 'based on a true story' picture is, to coin a term, pretty vacant. It looks nice, the acting is strong, and it's entertaining enough but it isn't deep. In fact, for a film that deals with such interesting subject matter as this one does, it's remarkably shallow.

Tom Cruise plays Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, a ranking Nazi officer who is growing increasingly unhappy with the way that Hitler (David Bamber) is running the German war machine after he's wounded in battle and given a higher up position within ol' Adolf's trusted few. As his dissatisfaction grows alongside his ladder climbing promotion in rank, he winds up meeting some like minded Nazi's who are also irked at Hitler's game plan. He and his new pals decide to launch the ultimate plan to kill Hitler and stop the war, but of course, we all know how it turned out.

It's not knowing how it turned out that numbs Valkyrie's impact, however. Plenty of other movies based on historical events have made it around that sharp curve and so too does this one. What hurts the film the most is just how shallow the character development is. There's next to no background information given on van Stauffenberg and this Blu-ray release, in a roundabout way, shoots itself in the foot by including in the supplemental section a fascinating documentary that does prove what an interesting man he really was. His religious convictions, his true patriotism and his incredible determination and strength of will are merely afterthoughts in Singer's film when, had they been handled properly, they should have been a focal point.

That said, the movie is decent enough as superficial entertainment. Once the novelty of seeing Tom Cruise play a one-eyed, one-armed Nazi wears off you realize he actually gives a passable performance, thankfully eschewing a German accent. Supporting efforts from Bamber as well as Kenneth Branagh, Bill Nighy, Terrance Stamp and Eddie Izzard of all people round things out nicely and add some interesting character actors to balance out Cruise's marquee draw. The movie is very nicely shot, paced very tightly, and at times quite exciting (the opening battle is fantastic) and the production values are impressive all the way around. All the more of a shame then, that the completely cardboard characters that populate this otherwise quite well made film are as they are - shallow.

Video/Audio/Extras:

Once you get used to the yellow-green filter that's been applied to the vast majority of the movie, you'll realize that Valkyrie looks pretty damn good in this 1.85.1 AVC encoded 1080p high definition anamorphic widescreen presentation. Detail is incredibly clear and color reproduction is very strong despite the screwiness brought about by the (intentional) filtering. Some of the outdoor scenes look intentionally bleached out, giving them a very 'hot' appearance, so detail can fizzle a bit here because of that but this is obviously an intentional stylistic choice. There aren't any obvious problems with edge enhancement or mpeg compression artifacts nor are there any problems with print damage. Skin tones look a little bit off in some scenes, again because of the filtering, but otherwise this is quite a good transfer of an interesting looking movie.

The primary audio track on this disc is an excellent English language DTS-HD 5.1 mix, though alternate Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound tracks are provided in French and Spanish. Subtitles are available in English, French, Spanish, Cantonese, Mandarin, Portuguese and Korean. The opening battle is fantastic with some incredibly powerful bass and a rich soundscape full of detail and effects zipping at you from all directions. Once this impressive opening sequence is over, however, the film takes on a much more subtle and at times even quiet approach in terms of its mixing. That said, the Blu-ray disc delivers it all with crystal clear precision. Dialogue stays clean throughout and there are no problems with the levels nor any audible hiss or distortion. There are a couple of spots where you might find yourself wishing for a slightly more aggressive mix but aside from that, MGM has left nothing to complain about in the audio department, the movie sounds very good.

The extras start off with a commentary track from director Bryan Singer, star Tom Cruise, and co-writer Christopher McQuarrie. It's a moderately interesting track that covers casting, location shooting, and some of the events that inspired the film but it doesn't get all that deep. There's a second track also included that comes courtesy of co-writers McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander that's considerably more interesting as it dives a bit deeper into the interesting real life events that inspired the film and how those events were recreated for Singer's picture.

The best extra on the disc, however, is The Valkyrie Legacy, a feature length documentary from director Ken Burns that explores the real 'story behind the story' so to speak. We learn how the Nazi's came into power, how Hitler became so influential and about those within the party who dared to disagree with him and how these events all shaped modern Germany as we know it. This is absolutely worth watching if you have even the slightest interest in the true life aspect of the movie, and in fact, it's much more interesting than the feature itself is.

From there we move on to a series of smaller featurettes starting with the sixteen minute Journey To Valkyrie in which the cast and crew join the cinematographer, the director and the writing team to talk about their experiences on the film. It's fairly generic and not quite as interesting as The Road To Resistance, which is a nine minute interview with the grandson of Colonel von Stauffenberg in which he discusses his grandfather's life and times as he shows off some of the Berlin locations that were used to recreate his story in this movie. The African Front, Taking To The Air and Recreating Berlin are all reasonably interesting behind the scenes segments that run between six and seven minutes each and dissect a distinct part of the effects, stunts, sets, locations and technology all used to bring the movie to life while the Reel Pieces Interview (the only extra not in HD) is forty minutes of Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer taking questions from various journalists after the film's New York City premiere.

Rounding out the extras are trailers for a couple of unrelated MGM properties (though no trailer for the feature itself), animated menus, and chapter stops. The second disc in the set includes a digital copy of the film.

The Final Word:

Not as interesting as it could and should have been, Valkyrie is still worth a watch for history buffs and MGM has done a very nice job on the Blu-ray release, loading it up with extras and presenting it in very nice quality.