Film Summary CCCXLIII (Ocean's Twelve)


Kind of incoherent nonsensical and lacking in Direction. That was more or less my opinion on this movie 15 years ago. And that's what my opinion on this movie is now.

The actor is all over the place and the characters are ridiculous. Matt Damon the guy from those Born Identity movies is playing this really whiny brat. They gave him more screen time in this movie and he continues to act stupid. So that was a horrible decision. Carl Reiner* is only in the movie for a small amount of time at the beginning and he pisses off to be bothered with something else.
Julia Roberts who played the love interest in the first movie is only in this one for a small amount of time.
Then there's the secondary story with the European Union and this investigative team is looking for them. That's not very interesting. The first movie was nice and streamlined there's the crew, there's the vault they're trying to break into and there's the people who work at the casino with the vault. Everything revolves around them and half of the story didn't even involve The Heist. It involves getting the equipment for the heist. In this movie they just have the equipment.
In one scene they're trying to rub this guy's house, and they decide to lift up his entire home using these massive hydraulic pylons. They put them under the water and they have all this high-tech machinery to do it. But they don't show how they got any of it, it's just there.

Why waste our time on secondary investigation story when you can  show us the escapades behind getting the equipment. It made for some fun in the original film and they could make for some fun here too. But instead we're falling a group of people that we just got introduced to 30 minutes in and we don't care.

And then the icing on top of the cake there's a super criminal. A straight out of a James Bond film multi maniacal thief.
who somehow orchestrated everything. Ocean's 11 and his crew getting found out by the guy they originally stole from the setup to make sure they steal the right things in the right place at the right time and then showing them off by stealing the thing before them. It's absolutely Looney and ridiculous. In a way that even the oceans movies are supposed to go in.

There's absolutely no realism. Now there wasn't a lot of realism in the original film either but there was enough there to put on a little tension and make you surprised and happy when the heist actually was successful. Hear everything so over-the-top and unbelievable that I'm expecting the Pink Panther to pop in at some point. And while we're on that note, if I want a more ridiculous fun movie why don't I just watch the original Pink Panther?

The whole movie just keeps jumping the gun. First trying to steal a Bank node** and they're trying to steal something else later on there trying to steal a fancy egg and it all feels meaningless because it can all be taken so easily. The whole point of the original movie is that they were trying to make a heist on something that was deemed impossible. And that's where the fun came in. Here you know they're going to get everything they're going after. Hell if they don't get it the magical Fox Man well.

I wish the movie was worth caring about, but between the spastic story and the disinterested acting from everybody it's just not worth your time. There's two other oceans movies before this that are worth watching and I've heard rumours that the 13th one is actually a lot more fun. And of course there's the newest one that just came out "Oceans 8" no idea that's any good. Title reminds me of the film 'Butterfield 8' which has nothing to do with the oceans films.

*Yeah I know he comes back later in the movie but his presence throughout the entire thing is so minimal he might as well not be there. Also as of this time June 15th 2018 he still actually alive. Which is something that was unknown to me.

**Piece of stock paper related to the Dutch East Indies Trading Company the world's oldest Trading Company. Ironically the history of this company and its Regional stocks is far more interesting than the film it's in.

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