Credible Credits
Year: 2013
Director: George Clooney
Starring: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, and Cate Blanchett
Tagline: It Was the Greatest Art Heist in History
Synopsis: A team of museum curators and art historians fight to recover millions of pieces of stolen artwork from the Nazis.
Synopsis: A team of museum curators and art historians fight to recover millions of pieces of stolen artwork from the Nazis.
Review
From the moment I saw the first trailer for The Monuments Men I couldn't wait until it came out. It looked so awesome. How could you go wrong with such an incredible sounding true story and a cast like that? It seemed like Oscar bait for sure. When the release was pushed from December of last year to this February I was so sad, but still extremely excited. It became one of the films I was most excited for this year. Sadly, the film did not live up to the trailer or all the expectations it raised.
It was disheartening to watch the "rotten" reviews start to pile up on Rotten Tomatoes. From the tidbits of reviews I looked through, the general consensus was that it was a film of unrealized potential. Some films are just plain bad because the script is trite or downright ridiculous, because the actors are wooden and unlikable, or because the director simply didn't know what they're doing. That was not the case for The Monuments Men, and I think that is why critics were so excessively harsh on the film. It had so much potential, and yet it never lived up to it.
The story -- based on actual events -- is incredible; make no mistake about that. And for that reason alone, I think the movie is worth seeing once. But let's end on the positive note ...
I wanted so very much to love The Monuments Men. I really did. But the best I can really say is that it was likable. For one thing, the pacing was so very slow. Now I've watched many many old movies. I am fine with unfolding a story at a slow pace and getting to know characters. But this was just plain slow. And I didn't feel we really did ever get to know the characters. For as brilliant as the actors were, and as fun and charming as they were in their roles, there just wasn't a ton of depth. There were some attempts to add more characterization, but with so many characters, it was as though each only got a half-hearted attempt. Nor did those attempts at characterization forward the story. A great film can move the story and the character development along simultaneously. This film couldn't seem to manage that.
The movie also had some tonal problems. It was never trying to be a gritty, realistic film like Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List. But it seemed to struggle to balance a light, humorous tone with some of the more ugly parts of war. I enjoyed the humor. I enjoyed that it didn't completely gloss over the atrocities the Nazis committed. But the two tones didn't quite gel the way they were supposed to. Again, the problem seemed to be depth. The humor and the horror were more situational. They didn't naturally stem from the humanity of the characters.
The biggest problem was in the telling of the story itself. The story was, by its nature, very episodic. But not all of the episodes seemed to fully resolve or lead to further developments. Basically there were quite a few times when I had to shake my head and say "wait what?" Even analyzing things after the fact, I'm still not entirely sure how certain plot points were supposed to work.
The cast did do a very good job. You were just left wanting there to have been more. And the film certainly has good intentions. I'm grateful George Clooney wanted to tell this lesser known story from WWII. It's a great story.
By the time the Monuments Men in the film get to work, the tide has already turned and it is fairly clear the Allies are going to win. With the greatest dangers averted, then they are able to divert some attention to the preservation and recovery of art. The film makes it seem like it was just these seven men. In reality, it was a much larger program consisting of a few hundred service members and civilians. In the film, the men don't always get much support from the various commanding officers they seek assistance from. That may have been true at times, but in reality, the program had the backing of General Eisenhower himself.
The film asks an intriguing question: what is worth fighting and even dying for? In real life and in the film, there were a couple of casualties among the Monuments Men. But this wasn't simply the case of a person dying for one piece of art, even if it was by Michelangelo. The Nazis had plundered every place that had fallen into their possession. The number of pieces of art was in the millions. It was much of the cultural history of western Europe. George Clooney's character explains why they risked all they did for the cause: "You can wipe out an entire generation. You can burn their homes to the ground, and somehow they'll still find their way back. But if you destroy their history, destroy their achievements, then it's as if they never existed."
Having watched the trailer again, I want the movie the trailer gave me hope for. This is a great story that deserved a great movie, not a passably likable movie.
It was disheartening to watch the "rotten" reviews start to pile up on Rotten Tomatoes. From the tidbits of reviews I looked through, the general consensus was that it was a film of unrealized potential. Some films are just plain bad because the script is trite or downright ridiculous, because the actors are wooden and unlikable, or because the director simply didn't know what they're doing. That was not the case for The Monuments Men, and I think that is why critics were so excessively harsh on the film. It had so much potential, and yet it never lived up to it.
The story -- based on actual events -- is incredible; make no mistake about that. And for that reason alone, I think the movie is worth seeing once. But let's end on the positive note ...
I wanted so very much to love The Monuments Men. I really did. But the best I can really say is that it was likable. For one thing, the pacing was so very slow. Now I've watched many many old movies. I am fine with unfolding a story at a slow pace and getting to know characters. But this was just plain slow. And I didn't feel we really did ever get to know the characters. For as brilliant as the actors were, and as fun and charming as they were in their roles, there just wasn't a ton of depth. There were some attempts to add more characterization, but with so many characters, it was as though each only got a half-hearted attempt. Nor did those attempts at characterization forward the story. A great film can move the story and the character development along simultaneously. This film couldn't seem to manage that.
The movie also had some tonal problems. It was never trying to be a gritty, realistic film like Saving Private Ryan or Schindler's List. But it seemed to struggle to balance a light, humorous tone with some of the more ugly parts of war. I enjoyed the humor. I enjoyed that it didn't completely gloss over the atrocities the Nazis committed. But the two tones didn't quite gel the way they were supposed to. Again, the problem seemed to be depth. The humor and the horror were more situational. They didn't naturally stem from the humanity of the characters.
The biggest problem was in the telling of the story itself. The story was, by its nature, very episodic. But not all of the episodes seemed to fully resolve or lead to further developments. Basically there were quite a few times when I had to shake my head and say "wait what?" Even analyzing things after the fact, I'm still not entirely sure how certain plot points were supposed to work.
The cast did do a very good job. You were just left wanting there to have been more. And the film certainly has good intentions. I'm grateful George Clooney wanted to tell this lesser known story from WWII. It's a great story.
By the time the Monuments Men in the film get to work, the tide has already turned and it is fairly clear the Allies are going to win. With the greatest dangers averted, then they are able to divert some attention to the preservation and recovery of art. The film makes it seem like it was just these seven men. In reality, it was a much larger program consisting of a few hundred service members and civilians. In the film, the men don't always get much support from the various commanding officers they seek assistance from. That may have been true at times, but in reality, the program had the backing of General Eisenhower himself.
The film asks an intriguing question: what is worth fighting and even dying for? In real life and in the film, there were a couple of casualties among the Monuments Men. But this wasn't simply the case of a person dying for one piece of art, even if it was by Michelangelo. The Nazis had plundered every place that had fallen into their possession. The number of pieces of art was in the millions. It was much of the cultural history of western Europe. George Clooney's character explains why they risked all they did for the cause: "You can wipe out an entire generation. You can burn their homes to the ground, and somehow they'll still find their way back. But if you destroy their history, destroy their achievements, then it's as if they never existed."
Having watched the trailer again, I want the movie the trailer gave me hope for. This is a great story that deserved a great movie, not a passably likable movie.
Quotable Quotes
- "We've been tasked with the finding and protecting of over five million pieces of stolen artwork." -- Stokes
- "If you destroy [people's] history, destroy their achievements, then it's as if they never existed." -- Stokes
- "Why would you do that?" -- Garfield to Granger, who just stepped on a mine
ISFS
No comments:
Post a Comment