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 "Ocean's Twelve" Chris' Review: Take a lot of famous names, mix in a well used plot (read: full of holes), and splash in a of leap-of-faith conclusion and what do you have: Ocean's Twelve. I'm not going to say that it was a bad move... ok, it was... but it wasn't horrible. A lot of what made it's predecessor, Ocean's Eleven a hit (the magic chemistry between the actors, the mystery to solve, the witty repartee...) is resumed in Twelve ... but somehow they messed it up. Gather 'round, children. Let's look a little closer, shall we? Everyone who was in the first movie is in the second. I mean, everyone! I think they even had the same guys holding the boom mikes. During this time, some of the actors have become even bigger stars. This is problem number one: Too many big names, too many big personalities, all vying for the same screen, all wanting as much face time as possible. The old adage of "too many cooks in the kitchen" very much applies here. There is still some chemistry between the bigger names, but some of the other actors are practically falling over each other trying to get a piece of the spotlight. It ends up negating that magic the first movie had. I'm not saying that there was any bad acting, it was all quite good. In fact, I don't have any complaints, in that area, at all. To be fair, there wasn't much room for good acting. There wasn't a character here that was given any real weight... as a result, you have a dozen+ static characters... no growth, no rounding out, no depth... heck we don't even know what their specialties are, and that's the point of Ocean's Twelve... that it's a group of specialists. The manic nature of the piece and the overcrowding limited the performances that could be given. On that note, we move on to said manic nature: The plot moved like a freight train that forgets to stay on track. Everyone is moving and it makes it hard to follow the film. I don't mind that, though. It lends itself to the feeling that the characters must feel. Everyone has his own job and the only way to concentrate on that job is to tune out the surrounding chaos. Unfortunately, we, the viewers, would like to have a chance to absorb all of it. Still, this is part of what made Ocean's Eleven work. What makes it fall apart are the things that get left out, though. The first movie gave the viewer a chance at solving the puzzle. The second movie just decided that the viewer was going to be too stupid to figure it out, so let's just say that it works this way. It was the equivalent of handing Ocean a genie in a lamp. Suddenly, the plot was fixed. It took away a lot of the intrigue of the movie, and without the intrigue, without the mystery, you're left with a bunch of actors having fun on studio time. While that is entertaining to watch, it's not exactly what I would consider a good movie. Then there were the plot holes. Like why would Ocean and his team think about raising a building to gain a line of sight... when the prize for doing so would barely cover the cost of the materials to raise the building? Never once throughout this movie do they ever consider how much all this is going to cost. I mean, who was building all those scale models of the museum? Those alone had to cost thousands and take days to make. It's just bad movie planning and the writers are expecting us not to notice things like that. It just annoys me. Most of all, what bothered me most was the chaos. Too many actors, too many things going on, too much scenery... too much of everything. You end up losing the texture of the movie... everything becomes one gelatinous blob of movement. It's difficult to watch and even more difficult to follow. Chaos and plot missteps aside, the movie was fun. Pitt and Clooney are great fun and play well off of each other. I'd love to see them in a movie together without all the hubbub in the background. The dialogue is top notch. The lines written and the delivery of the actors is superb. Great movie to quote from. The early 80's style of titles and direction really makes the movie a thing of beauty. It gives it a flavor that no matter where you pick up, you could immediately say, "Hey, this is Ocean's Twelve... I've seen this." Unfortunately as with most movies, none of these things can save it when the writing fails. So I can't help but give this movie the most adequate of scores. I give it one thumb up. That's right, just barely watchable. Don't expect me to have it in my collection.   Jim's Review: Sequels often have a lot to live up to. If the first film was well-loved and/or well done, the audience expects more of the same. If the first film was lackluster, the second can be an opportunity to build further on an established premise, thereby rewarding the audience's investment. At the very least, It's reasonable to assume that if it worked once, it ought to work at least as well if not better on the second go 'round. So, why do so many sequels, like "Ocean's Twelve", fall flatter than Utah in August? It certainly should've worked. The first "Ocean's" film (Well, the first with THIS cast, anyway...Not the 1960 rat-pack original upon which it was based) was flawed, but ripping good fun nonetheless. It's baffling how a film with entirely the same (considerable) cast and creative team could've fallen so drastically short...But all that "Ocean's Twelve" proves is that it takes more than a class reunion to ensure a memorable evening. When last we saw Danny Ocean (George Clooney), he was being hauled away by Las Vegas' finest. Not for having masterminded the plot behind the $163 million heist he and his gang of smooth, hand-picked crooks managed to elaborately perform upon the vault shared by three of the biggest casinos on the strip. Heavens no...The Danny Ocean of the previous film was far too cool to be implicated in his own robbery. Rather, he was being picked up for a parole violation simply for being in the casino in the first place. A small price to pay for one-eleventh of $163 mil (For the math-impaired, that's 14.8 million apiece) he stood to enjoy upon his release. And besides...As an added bonus, Tess (Julia Roberts) had finally seen the true colors of the treacherous Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia). She would be there to help him spend it once he was out. At the opening of this film, Danny is a free man once again. Sure, Rusty (Brad Pitt) was tailed by Terry's goons when he gave Danny a lift from the clink, and that likely means he's been made, but so what? He's a rich man, and Terry can't prove anything, right? Right. However, unluckily for Danny, Terry's not the sort to let credible evidence get in the way of his hunches. One by one, Terry and his mountainous, matching bookends pay little visits to each of the original co-conspirators from the first film. One by one, Terry informs them that he knows what they did. And one by one, he tells them they have two weeks to pay back the money...Or they're going to die for it. And so, Ocean's eleven meet up once again. Electronics expert Livingston Dell (Eddie Jemison), explosives man Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle), pickpocket Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon), financial backer Rueben Tishkoff (Elliot Gould), "greaseman" Yen (Shaobo Qin), The Malloy brothers Turk and Virgil, drivers (Casey Affleck and Scott Caan), inside man Frank Catton (Bernie Mac), patsy Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner), and the aforementioned Rusty Ryan, who serves as Ocean's right hand. So far, so good. But, inexplicably, instead of plotting how best to avoid Terry, keep their heard-earned stealings, and soldier on...They begin to discuss how to pay him back. Pay him back? These suave, smooth career thieves who've made lives out of deftly and winkingly making off with the cheddar of others for fun and profit are just going to cave, throw in the towel, and pay BACK he guy they robbed? Do you hear that noise? That's EXACTLY what it sounds like when things start to turn to shit. After taking a quick assessment of their remaining assets, the Eleven decide they'll make up the balance owed to Terry by thieving their way across Europe. The script would have us believe that this is because they are all "too hot" to work in America. Let's examine this for a minute, shall we?
Speaking of the plot...Ho-boy. It doesn't improve much from the aforementioned shark-jumping meeting scene. After Danny, Rusty, and a confused Linus meet with their European contact, Matsui (a Brit with a Japanese name played by a Scottish actor [Robbie Coltrane]), they take the only job he has...Stealing a valuable document from a prominent antiques collector, an agoraphobic OCD sufferer who never leaves the house. And, at the end of the day, this caper will only pay a fraction of what they need. But if the eleven pull this one off, Matsui may have MORE work for them. Oy. Thus, it comes to pass that after hatching a laughably elaborate plot to place underground pneumatic pylons that will RAISE THE MAN'S HOUSE BY THREE INCHES in order that a CROSSBOW BOLT shot through the window would land JUST RIGHT above the security keypad on the safe, thus permitting Ocean and his cohorts entry and access...They find that someone else has beaten them to the document they came to steal. A cat burglar by the name of the "Night Fox", understudy of Europe's all-time greatest thief, has left them a calling card in the form of a fox figurine and a tape recording chiding them. This, despite the fact that Ocean's crew have had the building under heavy surveillance, and only Matsui knows they are set to steal the document. Oh, and before I forget, the "Night Fox" is a thief discussed at length in a previous scene by Interpol agent Isabel Lahiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones, as a Welsh actress portraying an Italian official with a Persian name), a woman who we first met as Rusty's girlfriend...whom he left when a case she was working on began to point to his involvement. If you need aspirin, speak up soon...I'm running low. Soon, Ocean and his crew are playing a dirty-fight game of cat-and-mouse with the Night Fox all over the continent, competing for the favor of Fox's mentor, who's decision on "who is the better thief" will decide the a outcome of a bet worth the full amount the Eleven collectively owe Terry Benedict. Remember Terry? Ugh. Poor, poor, poor. Nevertheless, even if it were just messy story-line wise, that COULD still be excusable given a certain set of parameters. And, alas, hyper-kinetic and ultra-confusing plot aside, "Ocean's Twelve" forgets its roots, and also commits a MAJOR whodunit boo-boo. See...mystery stories in film and literature operate on an unspoken contract with the audience, a challenge: We'll provide you with all of the clues you need to unravel this one on your own. See if you can pin down the enigmas before the protagonists! >From Hercule Poirot to Miss Marple, Sherlock Holmes to Encyclopedia Brown...The audience should ALWAYS have just as much opportunity to piece it together as the characters. You're supposed to be given all the necessary tools. Then, either way, it's satisfying. If you nail it shut before the final chapter, you feel pretty smart. But even if Holmes gets it before you do, you're still supposed to be able to smack your forehead and say, "Aha! That makes sense! Should've seen that coming!" And to that end, the strength of the first "Ocean's" film was in it's convoluted, but ingenious plot. Certainly, nobody is going to make a how-to concerning high-stakes casino robbery. Think of the liability! But when Ocean and his gang pull off the first heist...It seems plausible. Every angle is covered...Every contingency and variable plotted for. And, the whole time, the audience is in on the joke. There are twists here and there, but as they are revealed, they slide neatly into the overall puzzle. Not so here. When the final "gotcha" hand is played, and the gambit is revealed, it's not just as a rushed subplot that appears at no other point in the film, but it's also as a completely separate storyline for which there existed no previous context whatsoever! When Ocean smirks his way smugly through explaining to "The Fox" just why he's won the bet, we're treated to scenes of all of the principal characters engaging in a thoroughly separate thread of plot that we've seen nowhere else in the film. Imagine Holmes saying, "Elementary, my dear Watson!" just before revealing a just-now-coming-into-the-room-for-the-first-time Bugs Meany as the killer, then explaining how he killed the supposedly-poisoned victim by using a magnifying glass to burn him to death from afar, and you have some idea. It's cheap, it's mean, and it's completely without basis. There's no way anyone could've seen it coming, because it simply shows up all at once apropos of absolutely nothing. "Ocean's Twelve" is a confused mess. It is at all points darker, less fun, less stylish, less funny, less comprehensible, less smart, and less engaging than it's predecessor. Somewhere among the leaps of logical faith, the meaningless subplots, the tacked-on resolution, and the distracting cameos, there is some fun character interplay and a solid performance or two...But it's not worth wading through the muck to experience it. 4 thumbs down. 
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