Ocean's Twelve

It's funny: unless I think about it I don't really even remember going to see Ocean's Twelve last weekend. I think that pretty much sums it up. It was well made, of course. Steven Soderbergh continues to make nice looking pictures. The acting is what you would expect from the enormous amount of talent assembled. The writing was snappy. The plot, on the other hand, didn't impress me. If it had been "Terry Benedict wants his money back with interest so they have to pull another big job," it would have been fine. But they had to throw in a cop love interest for Brad Pitt, a hubristic and way over-the-top French thief, and a long-lost-father subplot. The ending was fairly anticlimactic for me as well. It was something of a deus ex machina, in that I didn't feel like the cool characters I came to watch really had anything to do with it.



And for the nitpickers (highlight text below for spoilers) . . .



So Julia Roberts' character looks like Julia Roberts. Great. We know that in the real world that is because they are the same person. But in the Ocean's Twelve world, does she look so identical to Julia Roberts that the allegedly close friend of Bruce Willis can't tell the difference from inches away? Nobody unrelated looks that similar without cosmetic surgery. It made for some good tension, but totally took away my otherwise willing suspension of disbelief.



So overall it's an OK movie. It's something to do. It's worth seeing for shits and giggles. But it's not the original. In fact, it's kind of forgettable.