The reason Steven Soderberg's remake of OCEANS ELEVEN was enjoyed by so many was simple, it was fun and didn't take itself seriously. It was fast paced and the final heist was one of the best you've seen on film. With its sequel however Soderberg seems to have taken everything that made his original good and decided to not concentrate on any of it and to put no finer point on it OCEANS TWELVE is a failed mess in almost every respect.
The film takes place a while after the first, Danny Ocean and his gang of crooks are all living the high life until Terry Benedict, the casino owner they ripped off catches up with them and demands his money in 14 days or will have them all killed. The film then moves to Amsterdam where they have to figure out how to rip enough people off to get the money.. And that's about it really, but the thin plot is stretched even thinner over the films run time and there is such a painful lack of characterisation that you really wish there was more of well… anything really. Soderberg does his usual hand held camera "look how cool my films are!" jump cut nonsense but this time its all to no avail as there is just nothing interesting happening onscreen.
It's true that the film has the occasional moment of humour that works well and as the third act hits we are introduced to a few surprising cameo roles in what becomes the films best sequence, where one of the actors in character actually has to pretend to be the real life version of themselves. If this kind of madcap charm had been in all scenes and not just a couple of them, then OCEANS TWELVE would have been able to stand proud next to its predecessor, but it doesn't because for most part it just feels surprisingly downbeat and even the "twist" ending does nothing to excite as it probably couldn't have ended up any other way and yet also seems to make the second, and better, half of the film totally redundant.
Soderberg then leaves it to his large cast of famous faces to carry the film and even though they are all people who you know can do just that none of them besides Brad Pitt really do it here. Pitt actually has the biggest role this time around and even though you still don't get to know the character that well he is charismatic enough to hold the audiences attention and has just about enough chemistry with love interest Catherine Zeta Jones to make you care if they are going to get it on or not. George Clooney's Danny Ocean however is almost relegated to a supporting player despite being the titular character. Or well he would be, if it wasn't for the fact that the rest of the cast have even less to do than him. Pretty much every character gets one incredibly random scene where they get to say or do something stupid but besides Matt Damon's truly funny bumbling effort all these scenes also fail to hit the mark and just feel unnecessary as they drag as much as the plot itself. One bit featuring Eddie Izzard just seems to linger around long after its poor punch line has come and gone, its often as if the film is confused about what exactly we should see happen next.
In fact that is all that OCEANS TWELVE seems to be, a string of irrelevant sequences spliced together poorly that all feature rich people doing things you don't really care about. Even the heists aren't exciting and don't actually feel like they are suppose to be. Had more effort been put into it, and had it been something more than an excuse for its stars to sit around using fancy flip phones and prance about in designer suits for 2 hours the film might have worked better. But seeing as you can see all that for the price of a copy of The News Of The World every weekend, I doubt most people would want to pay for a movie only to get much of the same thing. Pointless just isn't harsh enough a word.
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I'm glad I'm not the only one who hated the film. I didn't watch the first one, though I heard it was much better. I did get slightly confused with plot with this one and couldn't wait for it to be over and leave the cinema - Kupo x
lilly2006 03.02.2006 17:04
I loved Ocean's 11, it's a shame to hear that the second one is so poor. Great review x
snowbunni 03.02.2006 16:50
A wonderfully withering review. Enjoyed reading it!
Like its predecessorOcean's Eleven,Ocean's Twelveis a piffle of a caper, a preposterous ... more
plot given juice and vitality by a combination of movie star glamour and the exuberant filmmaking skill of director Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight, The Limey). The...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Like its predecessorOcean's Eleven,Ocean's Twelvehas a preposterous plot given juice and ... more
vitality by the combination of movie star glamour and the exuberant filmmaking skill of director Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight,The Limey). The heist hijinks of t...
Postage & Packaging: £1.21 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
They're back. And then some. Twelve is the new eleven when Danny Ocean and pals return in ... more
a sequel to the cool caper that saw them pull off a $160 million heist. But $160 million doesn't go as far as it used to. Not with everyone spending like sailors ...
![Ocean's Twelve [DVD] [2004]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78512480.jpg "Ocean's Twelve [DVD] [2004]")
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![Ocean's Twelve [DVD] [2005] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/71545842.jpg "Ocean's Twelve [DVD] [2005] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]")
Feb 3rd, 2006
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