Critics Scoreboard
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Average Critic Score:
56
(36 sources)
56
(36 sources)
-
91
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The movie works like a clock. A few minor quibbles aside (the casting of Hitler, for instance), Valkyrie is a highly intelligent and deeply engrossing historical drama and, frame for frame, the year's most suspenseful nail-biter. Read Full Review » -
83
Portland Oregonian
The film is a minor Christmas miracle: It succeeds on its own terms, despite the gossip hounds' best blood-sniffing efforts, and dares to be an entertainment rather than a statement. Read Full Review » -
75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
The result is a fairly co-ordinated effort that, despite a few miscues, yields a consistently watchable film. Read Full Review » -
75
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75
Chicago Sun-Times
Tom Cruise is perfectly satisfactory, if not electrifying, in the leading role. Read Full Review » -
75
Entertainment Weekly
The mechanics of the actual plot are pretty amazing. Singer has assembled a top-notch international cast. Read Full Review » -
75
ReelViews
Valkyrie, despite being a more straightforward thriller, is less gripping than "Downfall," the most recent film in which Hitler had significant screen time. Read Full Review » -
70
The Hollywood Reporter
Singer has crafted a fine film. One just wishes for greater details -- and a different ending. Read Full Review » -
70
Variety
Has visual splendor galore, but is a cold work lacking in the requisite tension and suspense. Read Full Review » -
70
Film Threat
Valkyrie just misses out on being a great film (it's no Black Book), but it easily merits mention as a good one. Read Full Review » -
70
Slate
Once Singer dispenses with the introductory pathos and gets to the nuts and bolts of Stauffenberg's plan, Valkyrie becomes an admirably modest and compact suspense thriller. Read Full Review » -
70
Los Angeles Times
A perfectly acceptable motion picture. The only thing that keeps it from even greater accomplishments may be inherent in the story itself. Read Full Review » -
70
Chicago Reader
As a suspense movie, this works pretty well: director Bryan Singer (X-Men, The Usual Suspects) maintains a crisp pace as the plotters set out to kill the fuhrer with a briefcase bomb, and the historical details of the botched coup, which exploited one of Hitler's own contingency plans to mobilize the army reserves and disarm the SS, are inherently interesting. Read Full Review » -
70
Washington Post
A brutally efficient bit of storytelling, and it makes no unforced errors. It is admirably free of any Spielbergian effort to squeeze sentimentality or inspirational lessons out of what is a complicated and morally complex story. Read Full Review » -
70
Wall Street Journal
Once the plotters plunge into action, though, Valkyrie becomes both an exciting thriller and a useful history lesson. Read Full Review » -
63
Chicago Tribune
It's a procedural, often absorbing, rarely surprising, about a briefcase bomb and a near-miss. Yet there's no question the film feels dodgy and vague when it comes to the personalities and ideology of the men onscreen. Read Full Review » -
63
Boston Globe
It's a smooth, compelling, almost suspenseful (more on that in a bit), and slightly hollow Hollywood period piece. Read Full Review » -
63
Premiere
Marketed as a combination of a popcorn-munching actioner, but that's somewhat misleading -- it's also a well-researched historical thriller. Unfortunately, it ends up not succeeding as either. Read Full Review » -
63
Rolling Stone
Tom Cruise starring in the fact-based story of a plot to kill Hitler by Nazi Col. Claus von Stauffenberg sounds like Oscar bait. It isn't. And the sooner you accept it, the more fun you'll have at this satisfying B movie. Read Full Review » -
60
Empire
A film more concerned with 'how' than 'why' or 'who', Valkyrie would have benefited from more scrutiny and complexity. Still, once the bomb goes off, the thrills come in spades. Read Full Review » -
50
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50
Village Voice
Valkyrie feels like another installment in the never-ending franchise -- not just the action-movie one, but the Tom Cruise one. Like the operation itself, it's a good idea -- just not well-executed. Read Full Review » -
50
Miami Herald
The film improves once the assassination attempt goes awry, but the audience is never truly invested in the actions of these heroic men. Read Full Review » -
50
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50
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50
New York Magazine
Directed by Bryan Singer in a break from his gayish superhero movies, it's a low-key procedural with a dollop of suspense--although perhaps not enough to make up for the foregone conclusion. Read Full Review » -
50
The New Yorker
What makes Valkyrie more depressing than exciting is that it forces you to ask, against your judgment, what, exactly, he achieved. Read Full Review » -
50
TV Guide
The notorious action star keeps his bombastic persona remarkably reeled in, and the resulting film is earnest, somber, and extremely modest -- almost to a fault. Read Full Review » -
50
The New York Times
If Mr. Cruise doesn't work in Valkyrie, it's partly because he's too modern, too American and way too Tom Cruise to make sense in the role, but also because what passes for movie realism keeps changing, sometimes faster than even a star can change his brand. Read Full Review » -
50
Baltimore Sun
Valkyrie's political and military subjects may have sounded like sure-fire thriller material. Wilkinson alone proves that a suspense film thrives on intriguing characters struggling to survive. Nothing in Valkyrie is as compelling as watching tides of calculation crash across Wilkinson's face. Read Full Review » -
50
Salon.com
Neither a masterpiece nor an embarrassment, but a workmanlike picture that sits, inoffensively, in the middling space between. Read Full Review » -
50
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Bryan Singer's solid direction and some flavorful supporting performances from the dependable likes of Bill Nighy, Eddie Izzard, and Tom Wilkinson keep Valkyrie within the realm of handsome mediocrity. Read Full Review » -
50
Charlotte Observer
It's slickly executed, handsomely acted for the most part and utterly easy to forget. Read Full Review » -
42
Christian Science Monitor
Sadly, it lacks the classic awfulness that might have lifted it into the pantheon of Truly Bad Movies. Instead, what we have here is a garden variety bad movie, of which there have been all too many lately. Read Full Review » -
40
Austin Chronicle
We all know how it ends, and that foreknowledge dooms Singer's hotly anticipated and much troubled account of the attempt on Adolf Hitler's life. Read Full Review » -
20
New York Daily News
If there are Nazis fighting other Nazis in a movie and it's still boring, something's gone wrong. Valkyrie has a coterie of problems, and represents a whole new front in Tom Cruise's public relations war, but first and foremost there's the tedium. Read Full Review »
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