I realize that i’m about about six years late to the party here, but very few movies annoy me as much as this one did, and i have to bitch about it.
My wife’s away this week, so i decided to get a movie to pass the evening on the couch. I didn’t want anything too cerebral; i just wanted diversion. I enjoyed Ocean’s Eleven, so i figured i’d give the sequel a shot.
Big fucking mistake. This movie was fucking awful, a big goddamn mess that wasn’t even up to the job of helping me pass a couple of hours of mindless enjoyment.
I’m not generally that hard to please when it comes to movies. I love mindless eye-candy with big plot holes if i’m in the right mood (as i was this evening), and even when i have strong criticisms, i can often still enjoy the movie experience, as was the case for me with Avatar. But Ocean’s Twelve never once grabbed me, despite the great locations, the appealing cast, and a director whose work i usually like.
I was prepared for plot holes—anyone who likes heist movies has to be—but the plot of this film was an embarrassment. Rather than a series of tricks played for the benefit of the audience, i couldn’t help feeling that the joke was on us, simply for watching this pile of shit. The actors seemed to be going through the motions, and some of the scenes were way too long, laboriously dragging out what should have been brief and snappy encounters.
And the whole Julia Roberts as Julia Roberts thing? Fuck me, but i don’t think i’ve ever seen a worse plot device. I was already bored with the movie, but this just confirmed that everyone involved with this piece of dreck was just phoning it in for a paycheck.
If i were allocating those paychecks, most of the money would have gone to whoever was responsible for the soundtrack, because that was the only bright spot in this cinematic swamp. What a piece of shit.
I agree with this, except possibly the “it didn’t work” part. It was one of my favorite movies of the 2000s, and definitely my favorite of the Ocean’s series. Not many directors have the clout and the sense of experimentation that can make something like that, so you have to give them props just for that.
And I’m not really sure why people hate it so much. It’s rewatchability is high, and I’ve seen certain scenes many times. And while I agree with the music being pretty cool, I also have to say that Julia Roberts thing was incredible. But the Nightfox scenes were even cooler.
I more or less agree with this. In the first movie, even though the audience was misled about the nature of the heist, once the twist occurred, you realised that all of the prep work worked for both plans. It’s been a long time since I saw Ocean’s Twelve, but I remember feeling that the events we were shown weren’t relevant to the real heist.
With the exception of the whole Julia-as-Julia segment, I liked it. Not the best movie by any stretch, but lots of good moments.
Clooney, Pitt and Damon in the restaurant with Matsui where Damon starts reciting the lyrics to Kashmir; Clooney at Pitt’s hotel room door (“how many espressos have you had?” “Five”); and Catherine Zeta Jones. I mean, Catherine Zeta Jones, c’mon!
Unless they were purposely going for an actor who walks around like she has a duck stuck between her legs, Julia Roberts is horribly miscast in the Ocean movies. She doesn’t carry her own weight and she’s got about 10% of the charm and charisma of anyone else in the movie.
It is light years away from the worst movie ever, but considering how much I liked the first one, I was very surprised by how dull and clunky the second movie was. I didn’t bother with the third.
That was really terrible. It’s one of the laziest things I’ve ever seen in a movie.
What does that mean? Lazy how? Compared to what unlazy script writing?
Seemed to me that it was a gag for all the viewers who had seen the first two movies - a bit of post modernism. Like they were watching the movies knowing that she was Julia Roberts. So how should they have used that fact?
I enjoyed it. It’s the weakest of the three Ocean films by far, but from what I understand the script was originally for an entirely unrelated movie and they decided to shoehorn the Ocean gang into it.
I do severely dislike the Julia-as-Julia part, but that’s more because I loathe embarrassing scenes in movies. Conceptually it’s a pretty amusing little twist on the story, especially given that the story is itself a thin veneer over the fact that the movies are primarily about Clooney, Pitt, and Damon just goofing around.
Mainly I like it (and the other two movies) just for the character interactions. They’re just brilliant.
“It’s ridiculous, I mean this is a moral issue we’re dealing with here. Not to mention we don’t have a grease man anymore, because he’s in a bag somewhere. We don’t know.”
“We got a bag man.”
“Such an ape, an animal, with no feelings you are.”
“What did I say?”
“You called his niece a whore.”
“A very cheap one.”
“She’s seven.”
It’s not a very good movie, IMO, and it suffers from the high expectations created by Ocean’s 11. Not the worst movie ever (or even of that year), but easily the worst “Ocean’s” movie by a longshot. 13 was good.
I remember when 13 came out, Clooney referring to it as “Ocean’s 13: The Apology”
They shouldn’t have used it. Breaking the fourth wall for a gag that is neither amusing nor intelligent is the sort of thing that gives postmodernism a bad name.
If nothing else, I personally think the payoff scene where they show Toulour breaking into the museum is brilliant. One scene does not a good movie make, but I’m happy that it exists.
Then why not extend this to its logical conclusion.
After determining that Tess looks a lot like Julia Roberts shouldn’t someone have pointed out that Daniel looks exactly like George Clooney?
Then the dialogue would have gone as: “Yeah, and Matt Damon’s character looks just like Matt Damon! And that guy’s a dead ringer for Ben Affleck…” and so on down the line.
I’m pretty certain when the producers pitched the idea of a sequel, they figured there would be no way in hell they could get all eleven-plus principals together for a second go-round, what with other film scheduling conflicts and the like. When it turns out they could indeed gather the whole cast again somebody figured, “Whoa guess we better get a screenplay together PDQ” and that’s why the whole film looks like something that was slapped together at the last minute. The first scheme of tilting the house up a few degrees, the guy who had to maneuver through the laser show, what was the point in any of that? Oh right, it was bits and pieces of other screenplays thrown together without being tied together with any sense of cohesion or story arc.
Compared to coming up with something interesting, clever, or amusing. Compared to having the characters come up with a plan that didn’t rely on the fact that they are actually being portrayed by movie star actors.
It’s not postmodern, it’s moronically obvious. Using it for a joke can be funny, but they made it a plot point. If they were going to go down that road, why not have somebody just give the money or the jewels or whatever the fuck it was to Danny and Rusty because they look like George Clooney and Brad Pitt?
Think of it as a roleplaying game where the GM - Soderberg - has the broad outline of an adventure in his head, but is open to letting his players goof around with their characters, taking the story in completely unpredictable directions. In other words, they did the whole Julia Roberts thing because it seemed like a good idea at the time and they decided to go with it.
As I said, it didn’t exactly work, but it lead to some sublime moments in which the actors were obviously riffing off each other and free-associating, leading to lines like “We can’t train a cat that quickly!”
Sequels usually suck, but remakes suck more. For this reason, I’ve seen none of the movies in this franchise.
I am sure George Clooney is a nice guy, but he’s no Frank Sinatra. Watch the original – it’s funny, but a “clean” funny, and you can tell those guys had a lot of fun making it.
