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 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.

Die hard Clooney fans can make a beeline, the rest can wait for it to hit HBO.

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.

The stars don’t shine as bright in this film. The movie shows us some amazing art work and the magnitude of the sacrifice that was needed to save such pieces. Some of the depiction of the paintings and sculptures are sublime. If you enjoy art, then you will enjoy the references to various masters. The movie’s point that to save a generation, lives will be lost however the creations of those people shouldn’t be.