We’re only two more months from seeing George Clooney’s next directorial effort, The Monuments Men. Part period-piece, part art-heist, this new extended trailer shows some potential for heavy dramatic undertones while playing up the significance of these historical saviors of art.

In the beginning of August, Mxdwn brought you the very first trailer for The Monuments Men, along with some production stills and behind the scenes photos.  That original trailer showed some of the humor that would naturally come from a film that also features Bill Murray, John Goodman, Bob Balaban, and Jean Dujardin, along with the main promise of the film’s premise. In the new trailer we get a better idea of Clooney and Damon’s rag-tag group of art aficionados turned soldiers. 

Along with the trailer, a new synopsis was released for the film:

Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action drama focusing on an unlikely World War II platoon, tasked by FDR with going into Germany to rescue artistic masterpieces from Nazi thieves and returning them to their rightful owners.  It would be an impossible mission: with the art trapped behind enemy lines, and with the German army under orders to destroy everything as the Reich fell, how could these guys – seven museum directors, curators, and art historians, all more familiar with Michelangelo than the M-1 – possibly hope to succeed?  But as the Monuments Men, as they were called, found themselves in a race against time to avoid the destruction of 1000 years of culture, they would risk their lives to protect and defend mankind’s greatest achievements.

The Monuments Men comes to theaters this December 18th. Check out the new trailer below: