Do you know why Valkyrie is going to be God awful? It’s not just because Tom Cruise is going to do to this movie what he did to The Last Samurai. It’s because one of the trailers starts off “No man was more evil,” then goes on to explain Hitler was a bad, bad man.
If we’ve truly come to a point in history where Hitler needs an introduction, something’s seriously wrong. His is not one of those vague names like Calvin Coolidge where you don’t really why you know them. No one ever says “Hitler…why was he famous again?”
And if, indeed, you have no basic knowledge of Hitler, I don’t want you learning about him from a Tom Cruise movie. If you want to know how to be a spy or drive race cars fast or speak with a bad Irish accent, Tom’s your man. If you want any understanding of genocide, you need to go to a history book. Or talk to George Clooney.
This film will be an abomination. And I can’t wait to see it!
December 12, 2008 at 4:16 am |
Jah… Well, I can’t speak to the resonance of WWII in this day and age. Obviously it was formative in our youth, but maybe it’s for the better that it is not central to our thinking some 60+ years later. (Though even today the lesson of Chamberlain in Munich cannot be repeated enough in any debate about diplomacy versus bombing the hell out of somebody.) As an aficionado of WWII BS as a kid, I do recall that the fate of the perpetrators of ‘Valkyrie’ was a show trial and then execution somehow involving a meat hook, filmed for Hitler’s pleasure… Somehow I’m doubting Tom is going to be swinging from one at the end of the show.