"Cruise distractingly bad in 'Valkyrie'"

He was distractingly bad in the 30 second ad I saw for this last night.

This movie looked so potentially great based on the supporting cast and the director, and there sits Tom Cruise, ruining it all. I hope that critic is wrong, but my hopes aren't high.

I've heared from a few people that it's not that bad.

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Actually, I think that's a great choice by Singer. Why do we need to show characters in U.S.-made movies are German by giving them German accents? They're wearing Nazi uniforms and planning to assassinate Hitler; I think that's a pretty clear indication of their nationality. No one's going to think they're American or English. Let the actors speak in their natural accents instead of struggling with German.

Within the world of the movie, everyone's speaking German - why would they speak German with German accents? It makes no sense. I think with movies like this you either do it this way or you do it fully in German. The weird in-between "accented English" option is just silly.

I think you can convey a sense of a foreign language even as your actors are speaking English with word choice and rhythm.

Or maybe I'm just tired of the sad spectacle of actors trying to put on European (or whatever) accents and not only failing miserably, but letting it constrain their acting.

Think of...Sunday in the Park With George. The characters in it are actually French, but no production forces the actors into French accents. We remember they're French because of their names and the Parisian setting, and it's fine. The British production even snuck in its own correlation between accent and class by making Dot sound northern while George was more RP. The world of the show in Act I is French, and so the French people don't have foreign accents - only the German servants and American tourists do.

Similarly, to themselves, the characters in Valkyrie don't have foreign accents. Does that make sense? They're speaking in their natural accents to each other - it just so happens that we're listening in English.

Of course, Cruise sours the concept even there because he's the only American in a cast of Brits.

Updated On: 12/23/08 at 06:32 AM

I think I'm more distracted by a bad accent.

I think another (more versatile) American, with an American accent, might have fared better against that absolutely tremendous British supporting cast. Though, at the moment I can't think of one, LOL. I haven't seen the film yet, so I can't speak to what Tom is doing. But it's not hard to believe that he may be miscast. He seems to do the best in roles that are contemporary (though he was decent in The Last Samurai). It reminds me of watching John Wayne play Genghis Khan. Gosh, that was painful.

If I'm watching Hamlet, I don't expect to hear Danish accents. Same thing with Romeo and Juliet, I don't expect to hear Italian accents. I'm not bothered if watching a film that takes place in a foreign country, and the cast speaks English without a foreign accent. As long as they are good. It reminds me of a recent production of Casanova shown on PBS with David Tennant in the starring role, and Peter O'Toole playing the older Casanova. I'm glad they didn't adopt Italian accents.

Speaking of which, I know I must be in the minority, but I was really annoyed with Paul Giamatti's performance in John Adams. It was an overall very good performance, granted, but still, I could not get past his affectation. I remember watching Meryl Streep's earlier performances when she would be doing her accents and you never give it a moment's thought, because it came across as so natural.

"Why do we need to show characters in U.S.-made movies are German by giving them German accents?"

Because it would end Meryl Streep's acting career.

Why didn't Vivien Leigh keep her British accent in "Gone With The Wind?"

I think as the craft of acting grew, there was a need to speak in the same patterns as the character. Acting moved from representing a person to actually being the person.

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A guy can get hit pretty hard many times in a movie brawl and not show any evidence that it hurts, but when a woman is cleaning his wounds afterwards with a cotton ball, he winces.

Got OT there. Um, Tom Cruise suzx.

Why didn't Vivien Leigh keep her British accent in "Gone With The Wind?

Because her native tongue and Scarlett's native tongue were both English.

For example, I've yet to understand why Bob Gunton has an accent in "Evita" when no one else does (since they're all meant to be speaking Spanish).

Me too!

MGM believes in the movie.
Link

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He's starting to scare me way more than Michael Jackson. And that's saying a lot.

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