Movie Review

Ocean's Twelve

Ocean?s 12 is a vanity project in the worst possible way. The MPAA should have warnings against movies like this, maybe using a picture of J-Lo than the usual rating system. This is just a reason for George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon to dress up in fancy clothes and relax in fancy locations. They don?t even have to act, as most of the time they?re just playing themselves. The script is non-existent, just an aimless vehicle to get these stars together again on one screen. It just becomes mind numbing and intolerable.

The "Ocean?s" team has scattered all over America, now owning their own salons and hotels, getting married, and living the high life off the dollar of Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia). Benedict, as you may remember, is the owner of the three casinos that the team robbed in the first film. Angry and thirsty for vengeance, he tracks the team down and gives them two weeks to repay his money or else. This sends them all scurrying out of the country, eager for another heist that will cover what they owe.

There were three simple reasons why the first film worked so well. The first is that they had a great backdrop in Vegas. Combine that with the suits and the jazz music and you have a flick loaded with style. The second reason was that the characters were just plain cool. They didn?t need development because they had all the things mentioned in reason number one. And the third reason was that there was a lot of intricate planning involved with the heist.

In this film, every time you feel the movie is about to present a heist, it pulls back instead. The script sends these characters in all different directions and every corner always seems to be another red herring job. After a while the whole thing just becomes tiresome, and the characters aren?t even cool anymore. This time there is a lot of male bonding and a lifeless romance between Brad Pitt and Catherine Zeta Jones, but nothing technically fun or funny. However, I did enjoy one scene in the last third of the film in which Julia Roberts' Tess pretends to be Julia Roberts.

The goal of Ocean's 12 is just to get one of the best casts ever assembled together again. It?s not ambitious or worth the time in the least, and to top it all off the pacing is ridiculously slow. I?m sure people will go see it though, for one reason: the cast. Director Steven Soderbergh may not have the storyline, but he has the tools. I?ll let you decide if that?s enough for the price of admission.

Craig's Grade: D+

A	10.9%
B	41.8%
C	31.8%
D	15.3%
F	0.3%