Confusing and dissatisfying depiction

Rating: 3/10 (17 July 2009)

I suppose there's not much point in adding yet another voice to the hundreds that have come before, but I just wanted to get my opinion off my chest.
I admit I was expecting the worst from this movie, yet a pleasant surprise would have been welcome. First of all, who is who here? How do you account for a load of British accents, practically the lone American accent (Tom's) and a smattering of German accents? Were those German accents supposed to depict ultra-German Germans? I found that phenomenon extremely confusing and distracting. Next, could not the drama of the events have spoken for itself? Did we have to have a constantly sinister soundtrack to remind us that something serious was afoot? I also found that extremely annoying. Third, I did not feel that Tom Cruise delivering his lines in a sonorous whisper substituted for real depth of feeling and acting ability. Fourth, did they HAVE to give Nina von Stauffenberg the Hollywood-glam treatment? Look at pictures of her. She was not drop-dead gorgeous, or impeccably costumed, nor did she have elegantly flowing locks.
Fifth, I have to take issue with the premise of the movie. "Many saw evil. They dared to stop it." Yes, they dared to stop it, or try, more than 11 years after it began, with most of them as registered members of the Nazi Party. I don't deny that resistance was extremely difficult and dangerous in Nazi Germany, but we have to remember that the majority of Germans, including Claus von Stauffenberg, allowed it to become Nazi Germany in the first place. And by mid-1944, some were resisting so strongly in order to save face, as it was clear that Germany would lose the war. Where was the serious resistance when the Jews lost their civil rights? When Jewish businesses and synagogues across the country were destroyed, and Jews themselves terrorized, BEFORE the war, in November 1938? When Hitler invaded country after country, before and after the war's start? Thank God for people like Claus von Stauffenberg, Ulrich von Hassell and others. But it was far too little, far too late. And Valkyrie, including Tom Cruise's attempt at a noble portrayal of Von Stauffenberg, does absolutely nothing to acknowledge that. Von Stauffenberg's last words, "Long live sacred Germany!" ("Es lebe das heilige Deutschland," I assume), show part of the underlying problem. Too many Germans believed that Germany was somehow sacred, and therefore entitled to more, while subject to less moral judgment. How wrong they were, and what a price they paid. And what a price did pay all those murdered by the Nazi regime. A glamorized, would-be valiant "Valkyrie" can't change that.
Rant over.