source: The Monuments Men

Sure, many are intrigued to watch a group of professionally educated art lovers attempting to save priceless paintings and sculptures from the Nazis during the Second World War, and yet there are a few others curious to witness, after over thirty years, an out of shape Bill Murray going through boot camp all over again... Well that's the first of many downfalls with George Clooney's MONUMENTS MEN… What could have been a colorful first act – that being the gathering up and transforming of an "unlikely" group of civilians into soldiers – is all but rushed during the opening credit montage: thus followed by their quick training and soon enough, the plot's underway... The problem is we hardly know these guys at all, and with a seemingly dangerous mission ahead, the unequipped yet idealistically intrepid characters should feel like old friends more than paper mache cutouts. Bill Murray and Bob Balaban are two extremely unique, wonderfully quirky actors not only wasted but given a love/hate anti-camaraderie so forced and unfunny, much of the subliminal attention will depend on John Goodman and his French sidekick, a young man with more passion in his optimistic smile than the script offers point or purpose. Although the main "couple," trumping even Cate Blanchett's weak attempt as a love interest later on, is George Clooney's mellow leader, Frank Stokes, and Matt Damon as the buried-lead, James Granger… Clooney and Damon have a sluggish comfort level of two workmates meeting for lunch after having devoured a large breakfast. But MEN aren't the only problem… The MONUMENTS fail to grab our attention as well. First off, if you counted how many rationalizations are made about saving artwork when so many humans are dying, you might get dizzy. With an exception of a few untimely deaths along the way, the artifacts are lazily gathered like an afternoon garage sale shopping spree. With all the running around, there's hardly any threat, in any direction... And speaking of direction: Half the time it's difficult to tell where we are, what we're doing, or what each mission entails. You'll hear a lot of comparisons with Quentin Tarantino's INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, another underdog in peril WW2 flick that, in this reviewer's opinion, also wastes an ensemble cast of ragtag heroes. But at least that portrait had a scene-stealing villain: These guys could have used someone more than an off-screen historical tyrant to keep them on their toes... In fact, if it weren't for the bombed-out buildings and sporadic gunfire, you'd forget there was even a war raging at all.

Well, that be it if I were to relate to the tag line of this ultimate propaganda film of the year. Too bad it didn't release last year; I miss so hard how this would have been ridiculed by the critics and the awards juries and would be thrown straight out of Oscar race. Any awards race, for that matter. 7 people in the theater. 40 minutes later, 3 of them left. Since the beginning, not a single movie-watcher cared as I took notice in all of their faces/airs. The characters were probably given a game-bet where they should idiosyncratically enact the glorious event of the history. No script, awful screenplay, poor cinematography & a torturous background score. Just because it is a war film doesn't mean you stick trumpets into it. Lots of pretentious jokes about cigarettes and all seemed to be in-jokes because they made no sense. Not a single dialog worth quoting as is uncommon in Goerge Clooney films. No character depth, no real humor, no action sequence, as well. George Clooney walked throughout the film like he is loitering his time away. Matt Damon played a cameo. What was Bill Murray doing here? Hopeless! More, even the characters were finding it friendly to joke and tease about themselves. There was not a single shard of seriousness in any of the scene except during the chronicling of the loss, which was tremendously pompous. Just because I never get out of a movie mid-way I watched it for the whole 2 hours and left the place utterly disappointed. And then there is one speech-song that plays somewhere in the middle that pushed me to the brink of getting out. One last thing, the narration of the event in the film in the modified, deadpan voice of Clooney was the worst thing in the film. BOTTOM LINE: Do not waste your money on this. Try torrenting. No point on waiting & buying the BluRay either. Not recommended! Each of the ensemble cast disappoints; even John Goodman.

I loved it. Anything with Matt Damon or George Clooney is an automatic "Go see!" for me. Add John Goodman and Cate Blanchet and it only gets better. I heard one or two unflattering critics' comments about the movie a week or so ago, and was a little nervous that maybe the Laws of the Cosmos had been reversed in some fashion and the movie would not be good, despite its can't-lose topic and Oscar-great cast. I needn't have worried- it was marvelous. I don't want this to be about what's wrong with those critics, but perhaps you'll find a small bit of that helpful to decide that you should treat yourself to this wonderful project? I suspect that if anyone didn't find themselves entranced and entertained it might have been because they were expecting something else. "Saving Captain America" or something. The film deals with choices we make as a people. What do we value? What might be worth fighting and dying for? Personal power, glory, and money? (read: the Nazis' and Stalinists' cause). Or human striving for charm and grace and love and compassion and harmony and "art," as imperfectly as we may have carried that out? (read: the Allies' cause, in principle, anyway). This IS a thrilling movie- but the thrills are very real, thus not sexy. I'm a scholar by trade (social psychology) and have studied this era and human relations extensively. As near as I can determine, this is how the war went for most people. And this project in real life, I hear, was rather quiet, and not thought to be glamorous- despite its "monumental" importance and its consequences for humanity (pardon the pun). There is real danger in the movie. And suspense- made more gripping by the vast scale of the stakes... but of course made a bit more bearable by our knowledge that we won the war, and saved a vast chunk of our cultural heritage with the mission depicted in this movie. For myself, I felt a surge of pride toward the end when the movie showed filmed newsreel items, re-enacted from the day. Yes, it showed the Army generals gloating over the cache of more than one hundred tons (!!! - worth more than $4 BILLION at today's price) of stolen gold recovered from the salt mine where the Nazis had hidden it. Hey- I'd gloat too! But it also showed the overall integrity of the Allies illustrated by their care and concern to return the art - worth jillions of dollars - to the countries, families, cities, museums, that were the rightful owners. That just reminded me that while the flag-waving and money-making and glory-seeking may be the norm in this world, there are also millions of decent, honest, caring, compassionate, and spectacularly honorable humans among us. It feels good to know they were there then; it heartens me to suddenly realize that they are still out there today. "Monuments Men" allowed me to enjoy a riveting and entertaining story about the best of humanity.

I won free tickets to go to the movie and we went and it was the most boring movie we have ever watched. My husband who loves action and history movies fell asleep. I ended up going on the internet on my phone. Just very boring and do not recommend. It's expensive to go to the movies. Do not recommend. The movie drug and was just simply a boring movie. The story line was dull at best. We expected a better movie and it just didn't hold up to the movie trailer's we viewed. I am sure it followed the true story of what happened, but we expected much more for a WWII movie. There were some funny parts, but they were few and far between. My history buff 17 year old would find the movie boring as well. Onto the next movie.

This much anticipated film is a dud. Too bad, as it had the chance to tell one of the more fascinating stories of WWII. A plodding plot drove a dozen viewers from the theater well before the film's end and Mr. Clooney wasted what could have been, at the very least, an entertaining cast. The thinly developed characters - Bill Murray seemed to have no more than four or five lines - gave the actors nothing with which to work and the viewer next to no emotional connection. I was hoping for a somewhat serious take with a few dashes of Oceans 11/12 and Kelly's Heroes spliced in, but found only one of the more disappointing films of the last few years. And the movie's fixation on cigarettes was a bit over the top. Yes, smoking was a big part of a soldier's life in WWII, but making a smoke part of the supporting cast is a little much. Any interest in this film is probably best sated by waiting for its release on cable. Not recommended.

Before I start writing I'd like to advise you not to spend money on this movie. It was a disaster if you ask me. If you really like to know why I think that way, take 2 minutes of your time to read this and you'll know. First I must say that I watched the trailer a few times and even then I knew it wasn't going to be something great, but I was hoping it would turn out to be a decent movie. So I started watching it. But what did I saw? I saw extremely bad introduction and a chaotic scene order. I really didn't know what I was watching. The scenes were short and superficial. I thought I should give it some time so it gets better but no. It just got worse. There were many USELESS scenes, which I don't know why they were put into the movie. I don't even know if there was any introduction at all. The whole movie was made with the same tempo and in the same way. It was bad mixture of comedy adventure and drama. The scenario was below average and the directing was awful. Even though there are actors like Clooney, Damon, Blanchett, Bill Murray etc, I wasn't impressed by the acting at all. I must say that the whole point of the movie was a mistake. It was very unrealistic because most of the scenes were rubbish. I mean who would leave 1000 tons of gold and 16 thousand artistic pieces unguarded in an abandoned mine? How is it possible that there is no one on the streets of Bruge the night before the German withdrawal of the town? And there were many more scenes like this.. The story was very chaotic. The scenes were not connected one to each other at all. And what angered me the most was the end of the movie, when the anti Russian propaganda was shown. I mean it was one of the worst movies I've seen in a year or more..

I don't know what the critics expected this movie to be.. an action flick? a thriller? a war movie? Actually it is a war movie. It shows some of the worst of what happened to human beings during WWII. Clooney also takes the time to allow us to meet these men, who could easily have stayed out of it. Who instead, made the heroic choice to put themselves in great danger to save the soul of humanity - its art. Kudos to Clooney for not cheapening their story with the traditional Hollywood "flick". I did not know about this history event and I found it interesting and absorbing and I fell in love with every one of those men and I thank them for what they did.

Actors are professional pretenders. Movies that depict real life events, or literary works,are successful if they present persuasive indications, hoping to capture the spark of reality on stage or screen. George Clooney is a sentimental man who conceals his sentimentalism well. He makes movies whenever he can about topics, people, and issues he cares about. Having read the book this film was based upon, I was looking for gestures, expressions, persuasive indications of a movement most people, including me until very recently, were not aware of. A story in today's Wall Street Journal proclaimed that the desire to save, protect, salvage and restore, and allow the present and the future to continue to enjoy art - is ongoing - even in such places as Afghanistan and Iraq. That article also dramatized General Eisenhower's efforts to ensure that American soldiers were respectful and appreciative of other countries' cultures and their artistic and other achievements. I thought that the exposition, the part of the movie that was slowest moving, where each character had to be introduced and developed, then inserted into the rather tense and nervous camaraderie, such as it was, was the weakest part of the film; but even this part had the feel of a recapturing of the mis en scene of 1944 global Armageddon in the world. I often forget that many of the Chicago group that made Saturday Night famous: John Belushi, Bill Murray and many others, were classically trained actors. Bill Murray listening to a record while in the shower is a great moment in theater, in acting, in verisimilitude, the art of making the gesture, the moment, seem so real that the audience forgets it is only a movie. The entire cast behaved as if they truly were the architects, curators, sculptors, and connoisseurs they were portraying, and I felt that the movie got stronger and stronger after the going got really tough in their mission. Kate Blanchett plays a tough French woman smoldering with an inner burning anger, and she is convincing in every scene she was in. I thought that she inspired and uplifted Matt Damon's performance. I think the quality of the writing is uneven, but that is true not only of art, but of life. Sometimes, ordinary people utter mundane statements; sometimes, we are inspired to be eloquent, elegant. I think that "The Monuments Men" captured that reality, too. I would love to see it again, and I urge anyone who is interested in the idea of saving precious works of art from military and other predators, to read the book by Robert M. Edsel.

In bringing together elements from Inglourious Basterds, Ocean's Eleven and Museum Hours, George Clooney certainly had plenty of opportunity for a rich and interesting story. War heroes who appreciate fine art played by the likes of Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray and John Goodman (plus a few "that guy"s), attempting to steal back priceless works of art from the Nazis, it sounds amazing. So what went wrong? Well, to begin with, for a movie about a team, we're given very little time with them as a group. Almost immediately they pair off on their own little adventures. Instead of using these exploits to let us know a little more about the characters as individuals, we get the usual oddball pairings and some mildly amusing, but ultimately hollow, vignettes. Even when we lose some of our team, it really feels like nothing more than just something that happened on the trip, like "oh, and I also saw a horse." We have hardly any sense of them as a group and far less about them as people. The only character whose motivations we can understand is the one played by Cate Blanchett, but her limited chemistry with Matt Damon dooms what little redemptive quality her character had. Also, and particularly troubling for a movie involving art, George Clooney's lens has little reverence for the work it shows. Though the film heavy-handedly ponders whether a piece of art is worth a human life, the camera never does. Even when a character lays down his life for a sculpture, it comes off less dramatic than inevitable. The film treats the works as being mostly historically significant and never finds that lover's gaze that tells the audience why. What we're left with is a bag of spare parts. It's a popcorn movie with no setpieces. A war movie with no battles. A heist movie with no scheming. An art movie with no inspiration. Were they to have found some of Inglourious Basterds' bluster, Ocean's Eleven smarts or Museum Hour's insight, they may have found a formula that works, but that's not the movie we have here. I'll be damned if George Clooney doesn't look good in a moustache, though.