The Monuments Men

It seems exasperating that with this amazing story -- and, indeed, these stakes -- Clooney couldn't bring about a rousing, breast-beating, educative motion picture. Such paintings, such sculptures, such little art.

Eventually the film feels like a tidy museum piece, too bland to even work as escapist adventure.

It's evident from the repeated speeches Clooney makes about the value of art and culture that he remains committed to directing popular films that still manage to say something important about the world. But while The Monuments Men has a noble message at its heart, it's just not very satisfying as a whole. A crushing disappointment.

It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what went wrong with The Monuments Men because it seems to have so many elements going for it – the great cast, the World War II setting, direction by Clooney himself, a decently big budget and Grant Heslov in the producer's chair. With so many positive aspects, it would generally take an awful script to undo a film's advantages but even that doesn't seem to be the case here. The film is not an epic disaster by any means; it's just uninvolving and too lethargic in its pace.

It should have been an effortless performance for a man who has made that word entirely his own in film after film, including a couple directed by himself. Where from then this laborious effort and this creaking film, despite the little-known jewel of a story from the greatest war the planet has seen? The actor-director and co-screenwriter drowns it in not only very cliched characterisations but in very strange and half-hearted flippancy contrasted with amazingly soporific speeches.

'The Monuments Men' has some brilliant scenes coupled with a beautifully mounted production, which keep the movie afloat during times when the screenplay fails you on the overall. Much like the mission in the movie, the intent is good; the execution however leaves a lot to be desired. I'd recommend a watch in the theatres but would also recommend a watch of John Frankenheimer's, high octane action-adventure, 'The Train' (1964) which had somewhat of a similar subject but got all the right ingredients to make an exciting watch.