Review of Valkyrie

Tomorrow brings another joyful Christmas Day. A day to spend time with your loved ones. It is also a day for many new cinematic releases. One of those new releases is the World War II based movie Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise and directed by Bryan Singer. I was lucky enough to get a sneak preview of this movie last week and figured I would share my opinion of the film with you.

The movie is based on the true story of the last attempted assassination of Adolf Hitler. The story, obviously, takes place in Nazi Germany around D-Day. A German colonel by the name of Claus von Stauffenberg, played by Tom Cruise, becomes disillusioned by the atrocities committed in the name of Germany by the Third Reich. When an injury during a combat mission takes his arm, eye, and a few extra fingers, he decides that he should take a more active role in ending this fascist regime.

Anyone who has studied World War II history should know how this ends, but for those who do not know, I will not spoil the story. I, as a history buff, enjoyed learning the intricacies with which the rebels tried to kill a dictator and take over the government of Germany. Because of the nature of the story, there is a need to show how reluctant the citizens of the Third Reich were about rebelling against it. So, there are several places where not a whole lot happens except discussions of what could go wrong. It makes the plot move very slowly.

The movie has moderate violence and hints at murder. I recommend considering whether your children are easily influenced by violence before taking them to see this film. Also the movie is two hours long without much action, so consider whether your children have a long attention span before going to see this.

Overall, I somewhat enjoyed the movie, but I will not likely buy it when it comes out on DVD. I would recommend this movie to any students of history, who would like to know more about the convoluted processes followed by the Third Reich. Also this would be a good movie to watch for those students who are currently studying World War II as much of this did happen then. However, if history is not your cup of tea, then I recommend skipping this movie when you go to the theater tomorrow. Honestly, I think it would be better to wait and rent this movie. So if there is any other movie you want to see in the theater, go see that instead of Valkyrie. Valkyrie , IMDb.com