We have our first insider news about the quality of Valkyrie, and it isn’t good. We get the following scoop from out friends at cinematical:
According to Fox News’ Roger Friedman, it’s not looking good for Bryan Singer’s historical drama, Valkyrie. According to Friedman, “Valkyrie is a set up for not only failure, but ridicule.” Friedman goes on to take shots at Cruise’s attempts at a German accent and even Singer and Christopher McQuarrie’s dialog gets a few (dis) honorable mentions. Although, to be fair, I wouldn’t count on a gossip reporter from Fox to be the final word on film criticism.
I must admit, when Valkyrie moved from a summer release date to October 3 – red lights started going off in my head. Tom Cruise historically has been a summer blockbuster heavyweight. For this film to MOVE from the sumer, to the fall tells me that it is either not strong enough to compete with the contenders, or it flat out sucks and they are dumping it when they can and will give the summer weekend to another picture.
I could be way off and be reading too much into a date change, but when Roger Friedman starts to throw rumors like this around…my suspicions start to have more weight. Time will tell, and all of us will be able to judge for ourselves soon enough. If this film tanks, I am wondering what it will mean for Cruise. Has he jumped the shark? Has he fallen out of favor with the public? Has Xenu forsaken him? International friends, I ask you – if this film is a failure will it be a coincidence or clear writing on the wall that Cruise is no longer a star that people care to see?
My wife and I saw Valkyrie last night. We thoroughly enjoyed the movie. All the actors, including Tom Cruise did a very creditable job. Other than speaking very abrupt, as German officers were wont to do in WWII, I did not catch any attempt at trying to do a German accent. This is a true story which makes it doubly interesting, and the fact that good men died for their attempts to rescue their country from the clutches of a mad man only adds to that interest. Like all of us, Tom Cruise is getting older and this precludes his credibility in roles where he plays a character in his 20’s. It appears to me that this is what the majority of the critics are saying — they can’t make the transition to Tom playing more mature roles. In Valkyrie he was not bad and he will only get better.
Funny, I was having brunch in my dining hall today. The TV was on The View, and some dude from some show called The Riches was on. Apparently, the guy is also in Valkyrie, and went into full tilt spin mode, talking about how proud he is of the movie and blah blah blah.
@Kristina
The day Singer quit X-Men is when I cursed him….like Doug said my voodoo is strong and it holds true to this day.
Yes, so you can blame me for the turd Superman Returns that is IMFO!
I’ll be back laughing when Valkrie takes a beating (nothing against Cruise) or on the contrary I’ll accept defeat if it does succeeds.
The first clips that came out of this film made it clear that Cruise had overreached in attempting this role. He is just not believable as a German. I think he has had moments of truly great acting (Magnolia in particular blew me away) but this role is just outside of his purview.
I’m not at all to see delayed releases to a late winter dumping ground. I have very little hope for this to be much more than mediocre.
@Jay
So YOU’RE to blame for that borefest Singerman Returns?! FUCK YOU!!!
Your voodoo is strong!
My Bryan Singer curse continues :) Take that !!!
I knew it! Cruise has a very limited range of characters he can play. This was a casting disaster from the start!
Very funny Herby!
I bet they pushed the film back so they can overdub the horrible accents.
This film is DOA.
They could of moved it from summer to fall to make it oscar bait as historically movies from early in the year don’t get nods from the academy, but if it’s bad then they won’t get those nods.
Well I think it is a combination of Bryan Singer+Tom Cruise.
Tom Cruise has lost all respect he use to get from the industry and general audience.
Bryan Singer pissed a whole lot of supeman fans for making a chick flick and not an actual superman flick. To this day they blame Bryan for the flick not doing as well as it should have.
I personally think the movie will bomb big time. It was supposed to be one of the oscar quality movie of this year but it seems the studio knows that is sucks so why bother releasing it this year.
I mean they completed the shooting a long long time ago. And the teaser also came out long time ago.
hehe. Tom Cruise and Will Smith.
While you’re at it, throw Daniel Craig in there.
According to Coming Soon they moved the movie again, this time to Feb 13 2009
Hows this for an Idea for his comeback film?
Travolta and Cruise team up for “Battlefield: Earth II” with a possible appearance by Will Smith
I am of the opinion that “Jump the Shark” should remain in the relm of television for SHOWS that have gone on too long. Lets try and start a new trend, for Cruise and other actors who should just hang it up.
I’m saying Tom Cruise has “JUMPED THE COUCH!!”
Bah, Tom Cruise was better back when he did The Outsiders, Top Gun, Cocktail, Jerry Maguire, and Collateral and kept his mouth shut about Scientology. I think it is time for him to sing his swan song.