As if to capitalize on the success of the Tom Cruise film of Operation Valkyrie, the conspiracy among the German military to assassinate Hitler, "Beyond Valkyrie: Dawn of the 4th Reich" is an embarrassing attempt at a sequel.
The gist of the film is that an elite group of British-American parachuters land in Germany and unite forces with members of the Red Army to thwart an insidious plan of some Nazis to escape with a horde of gold bullion, flee to Argentina, and seek to revive the Third Reich, after the failed attempt to kill Hitler in Operation Valkyrie.
The most ludicrous of the characters in the film is a high-ranking member of the Catholic church, dressed to the nines in his purple church vestments, who is accompanying the Nazis on their trip to South America. Was the prelate intended to provide legitimacy to the restored Reich in Argentina?
To add even less credibility to the already far-fetched plot, the fight sequences in this film invariably pitted a large number of Nazi soldiers from the Wehrmacht against the Mission Impossible team of allies. Invariably, the Nazis were incompetent and somehow outwitted by the elite allied team that included a beautiful blond German woman who was working undercover to aid in the overthrow of Hitler.
The film unwittingly turned to comedy, especially in the climactic scene when the action converges on Königsberg and a German submarine intended to carry the Nazis and their gold bullion to Argentina. The ending was fitting for a film that fizzled from start to finish.
