Better than that other movie with Michelangelo, Leonardo, Raphael and Donatello

Rating: 6/10 (9 April 2019)

The Monuments Men: 6 out of 10: George Clooney directs a breezy tale of the Allied troops that were in charge of making sure the Americans didn't destroy every single piece of art while taking back Europe single-handedly.
The Good: You know that Steven Spielberg ruined World War 2 films for an entire generation. Movies like The Monuments Men used to be much more common before Saving Private Ryan and Schindlers List. The British in particular were rather fond of them. Thankfully after twenty odd years this too severe by half World War 2 treatment finally seems to be passing, +and we can now get back to various genres feeling at home in World War 2.
The Monuments Men is a throwback to the old fashioned war film where a bunch of chaps pulls one over on the Nazies. There is a breezy, light humor to the whole affair with some sad moments sprinkled in.
The Monuments Men is also a very nice production with a top-notch cast. There is some seriously high-quality set dressing in this movie. It is one of the better-filmed representations of this time during the war in Europe.

The Bad: I praise the acting, but I have to admit that John Goodman does not look good in this movie. He seems in ill health and out of place (He is acting among Bill Murray and Bob Balaban neither of whom are athletic specimens or spring chickens themselves.) His story is also the weakest of all the characters which bring us to a severe structural problem the film has.
For some reason, the eight or so Monument men split up early on, and all have their adventures either by themselves or in This makes it hard to get invested in the story as a whole as we are hopping fairly often between characters. This constant hopping around makes scenes often feel like interesting vignettes rather than part of the entire story. As a result, we often have severe tonal shifts as a sad, sentimental scene swishes over to a high farce or budding romance with barely a segue. A filmmaking technique I call meanwhile in Paris.
Another query why does Clooney insist on making his men such freaking boy scouts in this movie? Making Matt Damon's character an adulterer or maybe have one of the guys be racist would have gone a long way to shading these ciphers. As it is the cast lacks any real dimension outside of the most surface tropes.
Clooney is invested in the mission as told in his tale and lessons regarding the importance of art for civilization. He also fears that the movie-going audiences knowledge of Italian Renaissance painters is restricted to those that were Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. So there is a lot of talking down to the audience and explaining the main point of the film over and over again.
The Ugly: I have long given up on historical accuracy in movies, but here we go. The actual Monuments Men consisted of 345 men and women from 13 countries, not seven guys. Preparation started before the US even entered the war, and General Eisenhower was a major proponent. Cate Blanchett's character is Rose Valland the famous member of the French resistance who did thwart a lot of Nazi art stealing. If your curious what she did the 1964 John Frankenheimer wartime thriller The Train is based on one of her books.
And then there is the Nero Decree that the plot of the last part of the film depends. It is as if Clooney realized that the Nazis plan of taking the art, storing it safely, and then putting it in a museum lacked a particular menace. So we have Nazis burning art and a race to save it. Unfortunately for the movie, the Nero plan was about burning railroad terminals, not Monets and it was never implemented by Albert Speer anyway.
In Conclusion: Overall the film was a pleasant experience with beautiful sets and locations and good acting. Just not a lot of substance there and the film never feels confident in its audience to come to their own conclusions.