How did this happen?!

Rating: 4/10 (24 November 2014)

What went wrong? Good story. Great cast. Good director. Good title. It should be monumental right? Everyone was anticipating it highly. Everyone was expecting it to be a big Oscar contender. However, it's safe to say the Oscars will stay far away from it. It may even get a few razzie nominations. A great cast try to save important art from the Nazis. It's based on a very interesting true story, and George Clooney's previous films as a director were well received. Some things in the movie world just can't be explained. This isn't a completely unforgivable movie. Cate Blanchett does a good job, and the actors aren't necessarily awful. It's a good story, so there's a certain level of interest to be had while watching it. There are some good looking bits and it gets a little better as it progresses once things actually start to happen. However, I cannot be expected to wait 70 minutes for the first act to end. The truth is, The Monuments Men is like waiting for a bus which never shows up for 118 minutes.
Despite it's great cast and good story TMM ruthlessly and cruelly wastes its potential with a movie so boring it feels like a parody of boring movies. It trudges along with a snail's pace and makes The Tree Of Life look like a John Woo action epic. The script is as bland as they come, and barely anything happens. The jokes feel stiff and awkward, the attempts at excitement provoke no kind of reaction and the storyline just drags on. There's almost nothing interesting about this movie at all. I didn't care about anything and the fact that much of it was juggling 4 different sets of events in 4 different places, my attention was lost early on. It's got a good soundtrack but that's about it. The trailers looked promising and they were good because despite the lack of exciting stuff in the trailers at least we didn't know everything that happens. That's because nothing much really happens and there wasn't a lot to show.
4/10