BY MICHAEL GOODPASTER
I didn’t know George Clooney directed this movie going into it. I just knew it had a great cast and the idea of it was interesting. Take Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Bob Balaban, Hugh Bonneville, and Cate Blanchett and put them in a movie about an allied group, the Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives program, tasked with finding and saving pieces of art and other culturally important items before their destruction by Hitler during World War II. Cool, right?! We get to see an amazing cast of people in a military setting with a deep appreciation for fine art. How could it not be great? On paper this movie should be one of those movies that gets talked about in award seasons. It’s got an “Inglorious Basterds” type of awesome military casting, it’s about WWII, Clooney is involved, and it’s got the whimsical-pretention of the artsy dramadies that award voters and critics go for. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just its own thing. It’s almost its own genre. Its martini and tuxedo slap stick with a social conscious “Clooney Comedy” is the best term for it. Sometimes it hits and sometimes it misses. This movie is not so much a “miss”, but it’s not a “hit”. This movie was okay. It wasn’t a bad movie. It was mildly enjoyable. Not boring enough to lose your attention, but boring enough to glance at your watch a few times. I wouldn’t recommend it, but I wouldn’t tell anyone not to watch it. It’s got a great cast but the tone of it is just too dry and smirky. It’s like The Expendables for the pseudo-sophisticates because they pull off a great line up of cool people. They story is interesting, but the story pacing and editing is slightly off to me. Stuff that should be funnier barely pulled a smile. You watch it because the cast is engaging, but as cool of an idea the movie is, it falls flat. Watch it if you’re interested, but lower your expectations. C
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