Ocean's Twelve (2004) Movie Review

Director: Steven Soderbergh

'Writer': George Nolfi

Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Catherine-Zeta Jones

So… I feel like Ocean’s Eleven was a greatly enjoyable movie. Ocean’s, in comparison, was just frustrating.

Ocean’s Twelve foolishly decides to dramatically tone down the suave factor from the first movie. Instead of robbing a casino, they decide to rob a recluse’s house and then a museum. Something I did like about it was that they kept referring to ‘the first rule’, alluding to some sort of Internet forum for criminal masterminds. The supposed antagonist from this movie is actually one of the most famous criminals in the world (the other antagonist being the system!). This famous criminal even has a mysterious criminal name, which slightly replenishes the suave levels.

Other than this, the movie decides to keep tripping itself up. The movie hammers in the idea that this character you only ever see the back of is the best criminal you ever did see. This made me think ‘I really hope whoever this guy turns out to be satisfies me’. Spoiler warning – It’s not. It actually contributes to an unbelievably underwhelming twist. It pains me to see a writer have so much potential and then absolutely ruin it. One thing that twelve did take from eleven was the fact that you never really have any idea what the hell is going on. You think you understand what they are trying to do and then Bruce Willis shows up and further confuses everything. I would love to spoil the ending of this movie because it is the best example of a writer digging himself out of a hole and it just makes me angry to think about.

Ocean’s Twelve certainly does not live up to the high-standard set by its entertaining predecessor. It lowers the suaveness and ups the confusion and is topped with honestly some of the laziest writing I have witnessed in my short life. If you want to see a good heist movie just watch Ocean’s Eleven. I haven’t yet seen Ocean’s Thirteen but my expectations have been severely diminished after Twelve. If you want to enjoy a movie and not hate all screenwriters, don’t watch this. If you want to know how not to write a movie, this movie will be a great learning experience for you.

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Ocean's Eleven (2001) Movie Review

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Writers: Ted Griffin, Harry Brown, Charles Lederer

Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia

If you take nothing else away from this movie, just remember that the greatest heist of all time requires the suavest and suave men in the world. So basically, George Clooney.

First things first, this movie is really interesting to watch. You would expect that the most enjoyable bit is the heist itself but I found it really fun just to watch the plan come together and for all the characters to play their own special roles in the heist. Most of these characters are also really memorable. I found myself enjoying every part of the movie that had a character in it (especially if they were played by George Clooney, Brad Pitt of Matt Damon).

Unfortunately, for a viewer to truly understand a plan that goes into a heist as complex as this, it must be explained to them rather clearly, the movie forgets to do this. The line between setup for the heist and the heist itself was exceedingly blurred and I often had very little idea what was going to happen next (which was both good and bad). I thought it would have been cool for the characters to be such criminal masterminds that they can say they are going to do something and just do it without fail and still be suave as hell. This kind of did happen but Clooney never seemed like ‘oh no they are going to have me under surveillance at all times’. On top of this, the supposedly unexpected mini-twist at the end was rather predictable. All of these things are rather minor though.

Ocean’s Eleven makes robbing a casino look remarkably easy but doesn’t really explain to the viewer how they actually did it. The ending was rather underwhelming and predictable but despite these minor inconveniences that characters make this movie so endlessly enjoyable to watch and certainly compelled me to watch Ocean’s Twelve. Definitely worth your time and your money if you can accept the fact that at some points you won’t have a clue what the characters are doing.

Please feel free to leave a comment on either the movie or the review. Say if you liked or disliked the movie. I'm interested to find out what you think!