An unlikely World War II platoon is tasked to rescue art masterpieces from German thieves and return them to their owners.An unlikely World War II platoon is tasked to rescue art masterpieces from German thieves and return them to their owners.An unlikely World War II platoon is tasked to rescue art masterpieces from German thieves and return them to their owners.
- Awards
- 3 wins & 3 nominations total
- Commander Elya
- (as Zahary Baharov)
Featured reviews
The film took a really long time to get going as they wanted it to be about the men that took on this task. But they changed their names and I also couldn't tell you a single characteristic of any of them. The men were paired off so they each had their own region to investigate, but none of that was interesting. The worst part was giving James Granger (Matt Damon) and Claire Simon (Cate Blanchett, representing the real- life heroine Rose Valland) a love story. They did have a reason for such nonsense, or how about just sticking with how it actually happened.
George Clooney has said the film is about 80% accurate, and that seems fair enough. But the problem isn't the historical inaccuracy; the problem is that the cheap humour diminishes the very people and story they're trying to empower. The humour was just a handful of lines wanting to kill Hitler and standing on a landmine. It just didn't make the film entertaining. The story could have done that but it didn't become interesting until they started discovering where the Germans hid the art. Coincidentally, the same point when the film started following the real story.
"The Monuments Men" very clearly wanted to help remember an important part of history and spark a debate about the cost of war on soldiers, civilians, and history and society. The debate is raging on, but the film missed the level of entertainment by not trusting its audience to be interested in exactly what happened.
So what went wrong? Well, to begin with, for a movie about a team, we're given very little time with them as a group. Almost immediately they pair off on their own little adventures. Instead of using these exploits to let us know a little more about the characters as individuals, we get the usual oddball pairings and some mildly amusing, but ultimately hollow, vignettes. Even when we lose some of our team, it really feels like nothing more than just something that happened on the trip, like "oh, and I also saw a horse." We have hardly any sense of them as a group and far less about them as people. The only character whose motivations we can understand is the one played by Cate Blanchett, but her limited chemistry with Matt Damon dooms what little redemptive quality her character had.
Also, and particularly troubling for a movie involving art, George Clooney's lens has little reverence for the work it shows. Though the film heavy-handedly ponders whether a piece of art is worth a human life, the camera never does. Even when a character lays down his life for a sculpture, it comes off less dramatic than inevitable. The film treats the works as being mostly historically significant and never finds that lover's gaze that tells the audience why.
What we're left with is a bag of spare parts. It's a popcorn movie with no setpieces. A war movie with no battles. A heist movie with no scheming. An art movie with no inspiration. Were they to have found some of Inglourious Basterds' bluster, Ocean's Eleven smarts or Museum Hour's insight, they may have found a formula that works, but that's not the movie we have here. I'll be damned if George Clooney doesn't look good in a moustache, though.
That said, this movie being more jovial and about kinship amongst the men who swore to save art and culture felt like an appropriate tone. It made the film fun.
Having enjoyed it, there are still flaws. Not enough focus on the actual works of art for one, and for another, a little disjointed and rushed in some spots while other scenes that have little impact on the story take up screen time. It could have been a more art-centric celebratory movie than it was, given the heart of the matter.
This is not a terrible film. Maybe not what some would expect, but I had a nice time watching it, learned a lot, and even at times felt compelled about the accomplishments of humanity. That's a hard feeling to come by, so I embrace and appreciate it.
Did you know
- TriviaThe "Monuments Men" were a group of approximately 345 men and women from thirteen nations, most of whom volunteered for service in the newly created MFAA section during World War II. Many had expertise as museum directors, curators, art historians, artists, architects, and educators. Their job description was simple: to protect cultural treasures so far as war allowed.
- GoofsWhen the German asks the French assistant for a champagne glass, the woman gets a champagne coupe style glass. Some people incorrectly assume that this is an error in the movie and that a champagne flute should have been used. However, champagne flutes did not become popular until later in the twentieth century and during the World War II era the champagne coupe was the style of glass commonly used to serve champagne.
- Quotes
Frank Stokes: I think you should know the truth as I see it. This mission is never designed to succeed. If they were honest, they would tell us that. They'd tell us that with this many people dying, who cares about art. They're wrong. Because that's exactly what we're fighting for. For our culture and for our way of life. You can wipe out a generation of people. You can burn their homes to the ground and somehow they'll still come back. But if you destroy their achievements and their history then it's like they never existed. Just ash floating. That's what Adolf Hitler wants. And it's the one thing we simply can't allow.
- Crazy creditsAt the beginning of the end credits there are black and white photos of the real Monuments Men with some of the art they saved.
- SoundtracksNight And Day
Written by Cole Porter
Performed by Patrick Peronne (as Patrick Péronne)
Courtesy of Promo Sound Ltd
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Details
- Release date
- Countries of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- Operación monumento
- Filming locations
- Rye, East Sussex, England, UK(The strand, the harbour and many other areas of the town and surrounding area.)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $70,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $78,031,620
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $22,003,433
- Feb 9, 2014
- Gross worldwide
- $156,706,638
- Runtime1 hour 58 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 2.39 : 1