Film Review: The Monuments Men

In an effort to expand the topics covered in Beantown Lifestyle, I'm going to start reviewing films, shows, and books as I finish them with my opinions and analysis. I'm in the process of several books and TV shows, so I'll be sure to cover them when the time comes.

My first one will be the movie I saw last weekend: The Monuments Men.

I must admit, I had very high hopes for this when watching the previews in the weeks leading up to its release. The subject matter is an intriguing one and harshly understated in history: with all of the destruction in Europe during World War II, thousands of priceless pieces of art and artifacts were being stolen, lost, or ruined.

The cast was also obviously appealing, with George Clooney and Matt Damon being complimented by John Goodman, Bill Murray, and Cate Blanchette.

However, I was ultimately disappointed in the film. It seemed to be without genre, torn rather clumsily amongst war, action, drama, and comedy genres. The picture didn't have enough strategy to be a war movie, enough explosions to be an action movie, enough drama to be a drama film, and it just wasn't funny enough to be a comedy. Think of it as a hybrid of Saving Private Ryan, The Da Vinci Code, and Oceans Twelve with about half the quality.

The story should be a fascinating one, untold history during the biggest conflict in history featuring some of the most monumental (no pun intended) pieces of art work ever created. But it was not.

The story line was a poorly crafted attempt to coordinate efforts across the whole Allied advance to locate and secure famous paintings, statues, and manuscripts and return them to their rightful place. The pinnacle of their search was the famous Madonna of Bruges sculpture, which of course they find at the end.

As far as the characters go, it was just too awkwardly forced to have old men like Goodman and Murray navigating their way through war-torn Europe. They were all good, of course, but it wasn't a statement performance for anyone involved.

The predictable plot concluded with them finding a huge cache of artwork before the Russians can get to it and everything is right with the world. This is despite the fact that the movie should have ended about 2-3 times before it actually did.

It's a cool concept and I haven't read the book, which I'm sure is much better. However, the film made some attempts and fell short. I'd recommend this only to WWII buffs or art history fans who might catch some of the more subtle references in the dialogue. To everyone else, it's a rather weak and at times boring way to spend two hours.

OVERALL: 6/10