Movie Review: The Monuments Men (2014)

Inspired by true events, The Monuments Men recounts the story of Allied attempts to find and safeguard precious art as World War Two rages on the battlefields of Europe. The slice of history is worthwhile, but the film is preachy and lacks an emotional focus.

With the Allies preparing to wrest Europe from Nazi control, art expert Frank Stokes (George Clooney) convinces President Roosevelt that a special effort is required to safeguard Europe's artistic treasures from destruction and theft. Stokes assembles a group of art and architecture professionals including James Granger (Matt Damon), Richard Campbell (Bill Murray) and Walter Garfield (John Goodman). They are joined by Frenchman Jean Claude Clermont (Jean Dujardin) and English army officer Donald Jeffries (Hugh Bonneville). The group receives basic military training and arrives on the Normandy beaches a few weeks after the D-Day landings.

With Hitler still harbouring grandiose ambitions of opening a massive art museum in his name and filling it with stolen loot, Stokes' men use spotty intelligence reports and spread out to various towns to try and locate the hidden caches of art seized by the German army. Granger makes his way to Paris, and connects with Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett), an art curator who was forced to collaborate with the occupying Germans but managed to keep detailed records of key art pieces. Meanwhile, Jeffries risks his life trying to save a treasured statue in a Belgian church. With the Germans in full retreat, Stokes and his men have to race against time to find and recover the art treasures of Europe.

The Monuments Men is a well-staged spectacle, professionally produced and overflowing with good intentions. But writer, producer and director George Clooney struggles mightily to find the right tone, and never gets there. The film oscillates wildly between juvenile levels of humour, attempting to capitalize on the long-ago reputations of Goodman and Murray, and scenes that desperately overreach to try and grasp some level of solemnity.

In the attempts to find a serious core, the film often veers towards commentary about the Holocaust rather than the artwork, unintentionally deflecting from the purpose at hand. The supposed highlight scene of Stokes face to face with a captured German officer fizzles miserably, Stokes' tiresome speech about buying a bagel from a Jewish cafe in New York going exactly nowhere in the context of the film.

In a case of spoon-feeding overload, on four different occasions Clooney takes to the pulpit to spell out, in lengthy monologues, the importance of the Saving The Art Mission. On three of these occasions, he uses a microphone to emphasize the preaching. In essence the film's audience is given no credit for being able to grasp the importance of attempting to save the world's most famous and valuable pieces of art.

The film also falls short in providing meaningful depth to any of the main characters. Stokes and his team are portrayed as well-intentioned and jocular, but precious little else is revealed about any of them.

Despite the shortcomings, The Monuments Men is passable entertainment, delivered with plenty of pomp and polish. Cate Blanchett as Claire emerges as by far the most interesting character, facing a dilemma about how much she can trust the newly-arriving Americans in uniform, as compared to just-departed Germans in uniform. And the star-filled cast members do their best, stretching the thin and uneven material as far as it will go with pure charisma.

Like a merely average portrait, The Monuments Men is pretty to look at but lacks a sense of lingering resonance.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Artist (2011)

A loving tribute to a bygone era of filmmaking, The Artist makes everything old new again. The black and white, silent story of a career lost and a love gained strips down the art of the movies to its essence, and demonstrates that when the core is polished to a stunning shine, not much else needs to matter.

It's the late 1920s in Hollywood, and George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is enjoying the adulation that comes with being the most popular movie star of the silent era. Charismatic, talented, living in a mansion and with the world at his feet, George can ignore his brooding wife Doris (Penelope Ann Miller), and he allows his eyes and heart to stray towards young adoring fan and aspiring extra Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo).

George helps Peppy get her start in the movies but soon the industry is thrown into turmoil: sound has arrived, and studio boss Al Zimmer (John Goodman) redirects all resources towards the new technology, and starts the search for fresh new stars whose voices will be heard. George refuses to adapt, and stubbornly persists with silent movies, even self-financing a grand silent epic. But audiences are no longer interested in mute movies, the film is an expensive flop, George's career is left in ruins, and the Great Depression further bites into his fortune. Grace leaves him, and only his faithful canine co-star and his butler / chauffeur (James Cromwell) remain by his side.

Meanwhile, Peppy emerges as the sweetheart star of the exciting new era of talking movies. With their careers in opposite trajectories, it's Peppy's turn to extend a helping hand to George, but a stubborn and proud man does not easily accept charity from others.

French director and writer Michel Hazanavicius tenderly eulogizes the silent era, The Artist teasing drama and love out of joyous acting, cinematography, music, and clever humour. Dujardin and Bejo (Mrs. Hazanavicius) give expansively expressive performance that recall all that was good when acting had to convey both actions and words, Dujardin's megawatt smile illuminating the screen and Bejo's more understated elegance embodying women's emerging glamour in the 1920s.

Cinematographer Guillaume Schiffman plays with shadows, mirrors, and clever angles to create a masterpiece of blacks and whites, the screen sharply alive at all times with the energy of artistic composition.

The Artist does not pursue profound messages. The story of George and Peppy is a simple slice of life recounted with heart-felt affection, and the reinvented storytelling method is a large part of the exquisite message. The remarkable achievement of The Artist is that the need for spoken dialogue and colour are quickly forgotten. When a story can be told with this much style, artistry and elegance, additional aural and visual stimulation are just so much clutter. George Valentin's attitude is validated in the movie that chronicles his downfall.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.