The Monuments Men, the
new film from director-star George
Clooney, was originally slated to open in December – right in the thick of
award season. And it is easy to see why that release date was chosen, namely
the high filmmaker and cast pedigree, plus the Oscar-friendly plotline.
But as things often do in
Hollywood, the release date was abruptly pushed back to a less crowded early
February. Everyone involved claimed the reason for the shift was because
Clooney needed more time to tinker with the film. Now you can believe that
(which is a certainly plausible situation) or you can be more skeptical and think
that maybe the movie just was not up to snuff for the big award season push. Well
after seeing the film, it would be easy to say either reason (if not both)
could be the culprit.
That is not too say it is bad,
but rather, it is just not good as you want it to be or that it should be. The Monuments Men is a fascinating story
disappointingly packaged in a mostly average movie. It is still a good time – sure.
And with a cast and story like that, how could it not be at least on some
level?
The film follows the real life
story of “The Monuments Men,” an unlikely platoon of soldiers in World War II
made up of artists, architects, and historians tasked with finding, saving, and
returning lost pieces of art stolen by the Nazis and spread out across war-torn
Europe.
For a story dubbed with the
tagline “the greatest treasure hunt in history,” Clooney takes a page out of
his Ocean’s Eleven notebook by
building a strong, diverse, and highly likeable ensemble cast. The film stars
Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin,
Hugh Bonneville, Bob Balaban, Dmitri Leonidas, and Cate
Blanchett.
Each actor is given a moment to
shine and some do more with it than others. Interestingly enough, the film’s
biggest stars – Clooney and Damon – are given the least, while Blanchett is
stuck with yet another in a long line of rather thankless supporting roles and
somewhat distracting accents.
The cast gets paired off and spread out
to different locales during majority of the movie – Dujardin and Goodman have
the best chemistry in both humorous and dramatic scenes. Yet, there is one
particularly touching scene at The Battle of the Bulge where Bill Murray gives
perhaps one the best dramatic moments of his career.
Most disappointing, given the
highly affable cast, is that much of the dialogue is forced and many jokes fall
flat. It is as if the filmmakers just could not decide on what kind of movie it
should be, so they just threw everything – comedy, drama, war – at the screen
and hope it stuck. And sometimes it did, really effectively – like the opening
which appropriately plays like a 1950s-styled war-comedy. But Monuments Men quickly begins to take
itself way too seriously, much to the detriment of the film, its accomplished
filmmaker, and its usually enjoyable cast. The film never really finds its
footing and never succeeds as any one (or even a combination) of those
previously mentioned genres.
As mentioned before, one reason
for the release date changed was because Clooney needed more time in
post-production. If that is true, then the film must really have been quite a
mess before because it still has problems, particularly editing and story-wise.
The film just does not appear to be constructed very well. Several scenes are
disjointed and pieced together ineffectively.
Now having said all that, the
release date change will certainly work in favor of the film. January and
February are notorious dumping grounds for sub-par studio films. So with that
in mind, The Monuments Men should do
good business based on the cast alone and the fact that it is still better than
most other new offerings – especially if you have caught up on all the Oscar
nominees (the ones that were worthy
of that late year push).
* * * out of 5 stars
This review originally appeared on Chris's official review page. Check it out and other reviews on Examiner.com: http://www.examiner.com/indie-movie-in-new-orleans/chris-henson
No comments:
Post a Comment