The Monuments Men - Noodles Review

4.5 out of 10 Noodles

     The Monuments Men was on my Top 10 Most Anticipated Movies of 2013 list, and for good reason. The trailers were great, it showed us some wit and humor amidst the backdrop of World War II. It's got George Clooney at the helm directing, along with an ensemble cast. You've got a cool premise, and the anticipation that it could be like Ocean's Eleven; well it ended up being more like Ocean's Twelve. This film had such great potential. It's a true story about a group of guys who have to go into the warzone and reclaim art pieces that were captured by the Nazis. They had great historical stuff to work with and the ability to make it cool, too. But in reality, this movie can be described in one way: boring. Now there's a difference between boring movies and slow movies. There are movies like Schindler's List, Gandhi, or Seven Years in Tibet that are admittedly slow; yet they hold value within them, encapsulating cinematic merit, intelligent writing and themes, as well as retaining engrossment despite the slow pace. Then we have films like The Monuments Men, which is straightup boring and doesn't have much to be entertained by.
    A selling point for this movie would've been the characters and how well they worked together. And yet, I still have no idea who any of these guys were. While that's testament to the writing (which will be touched upon in a bit), even the acting isn't as great as we'd hoped. Of course, the acting's bad in anyway; we've got George Clooney, Matt Damon, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, and Bill fricken Murray! But it just felt like it was missing something. Take George Clooney for instance: he just didn't seem to uphold that Clooney charm that we all know him for. The whole group, even, didn't really have much dynamic to them.
   Apart from the acting though, I was really just hoping for this cool witty historical movie with witty dialogue and some fun action. And when I realized I wasn't getting that, I tried to at least watch the movie to appreciate the historical aspects of the movie and learn the story; but even then it's not interesting there because it's so boring. The writing of this movie was a huge problem, as the dialogue wasn't believable (the only golden scene there ever was, was showed off and exhausted in the trailer almost a year ago), and the narrative was so jumpy. The directing and editing also contribute to that; it's so choppy and points, and the film jumps from scene to scene, sometimes over a week, sometimes over two years. I really wanted to like this movie; hell it was one of my most anticipated for this whole year. But I just could not get invested in the characters or story, and the film itself held little enthusiasm. The disappointment factor takes a whole point away from the score, which leaves this movies with 4 out of 10 Noodles. Now I understand why they moved it to be released in February.


Now I'm gonna do something new where I ask a relevant question at the end of the review, just for fun, normally regarding a favourite movie of similar type; and I'll answer it myself too. So for this one, what's your favourite World War II movie. Some of mine would be Life is Beautiful, Schindler's List, and The Pianist; but my number 1 would be Saving Private Ryan, one of my favourite movies of all time, as well as one of the best war epics.