Slow, cliché, unfocused, chauvinist

Rating: 6/10 (22 February 2014)

Good points: Informative new angle about the war. Thought provoking.
Poignant and moving, at times.
The breathtaking depictions of all this great art. Wow.
Cate Blanchett's excellent performance. Matt Damon's smiling presence (despite being miscast).
The scene where Stahl is caught at his farm.
Bad points: Unfocused. Too many characters; too many scenes. Not much more than a series of vignettes, some of them cliché and trying a little too hard for audience appeal. Overreaching.
Lacking in nuance and subtlety. Approaching mawkishness at times.
I must have checked my watch five times during the film.
I thought almost everyone in the film was miscast (with the exception of Cate Blanchett).
Cliché. We've seen Omaha Beach many times. We have all long ago come to understand the evil of fascism and the Nazis. How many times have you seen a film showing inappropriate recruits attempt basic training? At least this time, they didn't show Bill Murray doing it.
It was as if the director was trying to tell the entire story of the Second World War (after D-Day). At times I thought the director was attempting an homage to the Second World War movie genre.
Too much stereotyping and chauvinism. To buy into this film, you have to believe (really believe) that art that fell into Nazi and Soviet hands was lost to humanity forever. I think it's fair to point out that the Germans and Russians are generally quite cultured, despite what this movie would seem to have you believe. Was this movie a little too overtly anti-German? Is civilisation in the hands of the Americans?
I see this film as an overly simplified and possibly unfaithful representation of historical events. But then most historical movies are like that. The theft of great art by a conquering power has always been part of European history. (Thankfully this movie hints at this.)
The movie posits a balance between saving great art and saving human lives, but in truth, it was never one or the other.
George, you've played in, and made, some great movies, but something went wrong with this one. It didn't work for me, however I do feel we need films like this to remind us: never again.