I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie.

Rating: 8/10 (1 January 2009)

I went to see Valkyrie last night with quite a few reservations (mainly because Tom Cruise and Bryan Singer, whose works I didn't really like), but I was pleasantly surprised.
The basic idea of the film intrigued me from the beginning: a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Since I'm a history buff, I didn't expect to like this film one bit, but it delivered.
The script is not terrific, but good, it delivered what it was supposed to deliver (which can be said about the whole film) with one exception: what exactly prompted Stauffenberg to turn on the Nazis? That wasn't explained at all.
Also, I think the deaths of the plotters weren't as cathartic as I expected (with the exceptions of Bill Nighy and Terrence Stamp). I was especially disappointed by Kenneth Branagh's death, they should have shown the explosion.
The main strength of the film is the terrific actors: Kenneth Branagh is excellent (unfortunately, for historical reasons, he didn't get as much screen time as I hoped), Tom Wilkinson is simply marvelous as General Fromm, a character you love to hate. And the greatest surprise: I could accept Tom Cruise as Stauffenberg (that's not a comment on his acting skills, my problem is that in most of his films, I saw *him*, not the characters he played).
Other notable players were Terrence Stamp whose last line gave me the shivers and the bloody brilliant Bill Nighy as General Olbricht, probably the most human character in this movie. David Bamber's Hitler was moody and good, he certainly has a screen presence, a silent menace that looms over the picture.
The only character I was unhappy about was Carl Goerdeler, but that wasn't the actor's fault. He was more heroic in real life than in this film. In Valkyrie, he was in many ways scripted and played as a weasel-like character.
All in all, this is a fairly good movie, not brilliant (The Downfall comes to mind), but good. I will surely purchase it on DVD.