The first trailer for The Monuments Men directed by and starring George Clooney has arrived. The film features Clooney leading a small squad of architects and artists into World War II battlefields to save, preserve, and steal pieces of culture that can otherwise be destroyed by the Nazis.

Matt Damon, John Goodman, Bob Balaban, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, Jean Dujardin, and Hugh Bonneville will join Clooney on his fight to preserve history itself from destruction, and there is a chance you will get to see them shoot some Nazis. Based on the cast list alone, there is the potential to see these characters struggle through basic military training and figuring out how to handle a firing arm. Hit the jump to see the full trailer.

A lot of this trailer reminds me of Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven films. The charm, wit, and humor uplifts the more serious tones of this film.

Synopsis:

Based on the true story of the greatest treasure hunt in history, The Monuments Men is an action-thriller 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.

Trailer

[Source: Apple]