Ocean’s 11, the remake of the Rat Pack classic, charmed audiences upon its release in 2001, thanks to a dashing cast of leading men and skilled character actors starring together in an upbeat, brisk heist film. The second installment bored critics with its padded romantic subplots, and the excessively exuberant stars seemed to be more excited to talk about how much fun they had pulling pranks on each other at George Clooney’s Italian villa during the shoot than they did talking about the movie itself. Is the new installment a return to form, or another tired summer sequel to a sequel that’s not worth your trouble?
Hard to say. The Oceans films are entertaining, breezy and just sophisticated enough without demanding too much of audience members. The cast is attractive, game, and clearly enjoying themselves tremendously, and the heists themselves are inventive and appropriately knotty. On the other hand, there’s not much substance to the plot or characters. While watching the movie, I realized I was caught off guard when George Clooney referred to Brad Pitt as Rusty, his character’s name. Obviously Brad Pitt is playing a character and not himself, but it’s easy to forget that fact while watching a film in which all of the actors are cheerfully coasting on their public persona. I have no problem with that, since the cast is capable enough to run with their one assigned character trait without being bogged down by character development that wouldn’t have much of a place in this kind of movie anyway. With that said, it sums up the problems that the movie has—it’s a set of glossy, appealing surfaces that ultimately collapses under any scrutiny.
This is the fourth or fifth summer movie that I’ve seen that barely merits a plot summary, but here’s the rundown. Danny Ocean (George Clooney) pulls his team together again after their partner and mentor, Ruben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) is double crossed in a deal with casino magnate Willy Bank (Al Pacino, chomping on the scenery here) that has put so much strain on him that he’s collapsed into a coma. To enact their revenge, Ocean and his crew decide to ruin the grand opening of Bank’s new super luxury Vegas casino, and in order to do so they’ll need to feign natural disasters, rig every game in the casino, and bypass a security system with artificial intelligence capabilities. Of course, it’s no sweat for Ocean and his crew, who have to pull off stunts ranging from infiltrating a dice factory in Mexico, pulling together the cash to buy the machine that dug the chunnel, and seduce the unflappable Abagail Spander (Ellen Barkin), Bank’s right hand (wo)man.
If you liked Ocean’s 11, you’ll like this one. If you weren’t so crazy about Ocean’s 12, this one’s better. If you want a movie that challenges you, forces you to examine the world around you and allows you to marvel at expert cinema, look elsewhere. Stephen Soderbergh, the director, has made his share of intelligent, well crafted films, and clearly the Ocean movies are a chance for him to relax, have fun, and pay homage to the classic crime capers that defined the Rat Pack era. It’s a frothy confection to be sure, but it has enough going for it to be worth the price of admission on a hot summer night.
What did you think of the movie? Did you think it was better or worse than the last one?
Dude, what does chomping on the scenery mean?
[1] Posted by: insideout680 | June 14th, 2007 at 7:41 pm\
[2] Posted by: Constant_Reader | June 15th, 2007 at 10:47 am“Chew the scenery” means to overact. It’s a term that comes from theater - the idea is that an actor would be so over the top in their performance that they’d literally start chewing on the scenery. I personally don’t mind a little overacting from Pacino - I enjoy it when he just goes for broke and has a good time with a performance, as he did in one of my all time favorite cheesy supernatural thrillers, The Devil’s Advocate.
[3] Posted by: Constant_Reader | June 15th, 2007 at 10:50 ammmmm, I LOVE the ‘Ocean’s’ movies, but this one wasn’t as impressive as the others. I still think it’s an awsome movie, but I expected more. Maybe there was too much lingo going on, and too many people(?) or the other movies were just too great to live up to… But still, awsome movies.
[4] Posted by: MichelleGazelle | June 17th, 2007 at 9:01 pm