Ocean’s Twelve

December 10, 2004

Rated: PG-13 Runtime: 125 min Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Ocean’s Twelve is the sequel to 2001’s stylish caper flick Ocean’s Eleven. The entire gang is back along with director Steven Soderbergh, but can they recapture the chemistry of the first movie? Well, as Rusty says in one scene while working on a new heist, “it feels like we’re forcing it”. The same can be said of the movie itself.

Ocean's Twelve The story picks up a couple years after the original heist. Benedict, the mark from the first flick, still has an acute case of the red ass over the whole thing. When he learns the new identities and locations of the Ocean’s Eleven gang, he pays each one a visit. This lets us see what each character has been doing as Benedict delivers the news that they have 2 weeks to pay him back with interest or else. So they get the band back together to pull off a new job to pay him off.

The first movie was very stylish. It had a great heist, and good chemistry between the characters with Las Vegas as a back drop. It worked. Without spoiling anything, the problems with the second film star when the locales and caper tend to be all over the place. Although there are a couple of good locations in Oceans Twelve, the visuals are nowhere near as stunning. The movie not only returns the original 11, but adds a couple of more key characters as well, so getting screen time for everyone is a challenge and the chemistry suffers. The movie feels forced and contrived, and the resulting style works like a fat white jewish guy wearing a FUBU shirt.

However, there are some very clever bits in the film that keep it from being a waste. The way they deal with Julia Roberts pregnancy is pure genius. And when you have a cast of huge stars in an ensemble piece like this, it’s always fun to see them poke fun at themselves, which they do subtlely multiple times in the film.

We give the movie 3 stars pretty much on star power alone. If this weren’t a sequel and featured a bunch of unknowns, it would likely get 2 stars at best. But it’s rare that you get a collection of talent like this on the screen at the same time during the prime of their careers. And if you enjoyed the first movie, there’s a certain amount of fun in finding out what everyone did with their money if nothing else. If you do not catch this film on the big screen, be sure to at least check it out on DVD.

Posted by Billy Bob | Filed Under 3 Stars, Action, Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-Jones, George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, PG-13, Theatrical, Thriller