Film Review - The Monuments Men (2014)

Based on a True Story in World War 2, The Monuments stars George Clooney as Frank, a Soldier in World War 2 assigned to track down and recover artwork and statues from Europe before the Nazi's burn it to the ground or blow it all up but a job like this will need a crack team for it to succeed.

I have to confess that I wasn't looking forward to seeing this film going into it primarily because the previews for the film looked pretty average but the film has a good cast in Clooney, Matt Damon (replacing Daniel Craig), Bill Murray, Jean Djuradin and Cate Blanchett, could this star power defy the odds?

Well, it does and it doesn't boys and girls, don't get me wrong the film is MUCH better than I expected it to be primarily due to the main Monument Men cast members having some fun in their roles and the musical score by Alexandre Desplat has some nice themes in it but at the same time the film as a whole is merely okay.

And by that I mean that the film really doesn't find a tone or structure it wants to use to tell this story which in and of itself is an interesting one but here Clooney and co-writer Grant Heslov try to steal the artwork and admire it too as at times the film is fun and light hearted while other times you see burnings and bombings and dead bodies which really jar with the Ocean's esque tone the two were clearly trying to aim for.

Another big weak link is Blanchett as quite frankly she is miscast in that role as her French accent and overall manner of playing it more serious than the others didn't quite work for me and I started to think after a while "I wish Marion Cotillard had been cast instead" as she would've fit the period and tone of the film a lot better as for the men well they're okay for the most part but Damon and Murray came across as the weakest of that group, I kept wishing Craig was in Damon's role as was originally planned and Murray well I got the sense that here was a man who had just stopped showing any interest in making movies as at times he comes across as just wanting to be anywhere else but there.

And so to wrap it up, the Monuments Men is an okay time at the movies but best saved for either a cheap tickets night or a DVD rental and given the talent on display here it feels a bit disappointing to say that, 2 out of 5.