Ocean’s 12

I saw Ocean’s 12 last night with Liam and Anne. Per­haps the last time I will see them before they move to NYC. Any­way, Ocean’s 12 is all edge and no teeth. If Ocean’s Eleven [O11] is an intel­li­gent, sophis­ti­cat­ed, mys­te­ri­ous and beau­ti­ful French woman, then Ocean’s 12 [O12] is a dumb nympho­ma­ni­ac soror­i­ty girl. Which is basi­cal­ly to say that both are enjoy­able in their ways, but one has a bit more taste.

O12 is not much more than a remake of the remake of O11 minus the plot. Every­one is back, their char­ac­ters are still as two dimen­sion­al as the pre­vi­ous movie and the dia­logue is still ras­cal­ly. It helps to remem­ber that O11 was a remake of a Rat Pack movie and that part of the rea­son O11 the remake was remade was to try and reform a Rat Pack cachet for this day and age; hence all the high-pro­file celebri­ties.

So it sort of seems to me that O12’s appeal lies most­ly in gawk­ery at the Beau­ti­ful Peo­ple being smar­tass­es. Enough of that ‘behind the scenes’ crap. How about the movie itself?

Well, Soder­bergh is his usu­al self which makes things sure­ly enjoy­able to watch, but I was much more aware of the com­pli­cat­ed dol­ly and crane shots mixed with the sur­veil­lance hand-held feel this time around. And prod­uct place­ment was all over the frig­gin place. There was even a com­plete iPod com­mer­cial right at the start of the denoue­ment. The cool thing about the iPod com­mer­cial was that it was an absolute­ly amaz­ing dance sequence to a frig­gin awe­some tech­no song.

The plot was flim­sy, with a Deus ex Machi­na and some obvi­ous­ly over­com­pli­cat­ed trick­ery, com­plete with holo­grams and lift­ing a build­ing. It was also pre­dictable as hell. I tum­bled to a major plot point about an hour before it was revealed, and minor ones all the time. So while it was enjoy­able dur­ing the act of watch­ing itself, after­wards you real­ize just how insub­stan­tial it real­ly is. Like a dumb nympho­ma­ni­ac soror­i­ty girl. It was worth 4 bucks though.

Adden­dum:
Pre­views: Saw a ter­ri­ble look­ing movie called Be Cool with John Tra­vol­ta in it. Uma Thur­man is also in it which might make it worth watch­ing since she is hot like Oka­van­go. Saw a pre­view for anoth­er ter­ri­ble Sub­ur­ban Com­man­do type movie star­ring Vin Diesel. Saw a pre­view for the new Bat­man Begins movie which looks quite promis­ing.