A Monumental Waste of Time

Rating: 1/10 (8 July 2014)

College drop-out George Clooney manages to direct another pretentious waste of time. This movie is not sure if it is supposed to be a mockumentary, a bumbling comedy or a serious drama. As a comedy it is not funny, yet the musical score gives the ambiance of a campy WWII TV-show so it is hard to take it seriously either. That leaves the film as a some form of a bad mockumentary but I don't believe Clooney intended this, yet this is what he achieved.
The acting comes off as lame caricatures, with the dialogue falling flat. Who wants to watch a bunch of idiots bumble their way around Europe, while some get killed because of their stupidity? The casting is also horrible as neither Clooney, Damon or Goodman can act. Bill Murray is decent but he cannot save this mess.
The most insulting part is how pretentious Clooney makes the Monuments Men out to be. They are geniuses saving "art" while all those dumb hicks and war-mongers want to blow it to pieces for fun. It is not that saving art is not important, it is that life is more important but Clooney literally gives pretentious speeches implying otherwise. No one cares Clooney, really no one cares.
Then Clooney manages to inject 21st century anti-smoking propaganda into the film by mocking the cigarette smoking of the time. Over and over and over again, smoking cigarettes is used as a bad comedy device that only intelligent progressives will understand. I have never seen such insane behavior in a period piece over smoking before.
After the second idiotic death in the movie, I just turned it off and I recommend you don't even turn it on.