Director: Steven Soderbergh (The Girlfriend Experience, Traffic, Che, Bubble, Full Frontal, Sex Lies and Videotape, The Informant!)
Writer: George Nolfi (Timeline, The Sentinel)
Producer: Jerry Weintraub
Starring: Clooney, Pitt, Cheadle, J. Roberts, Mac, Gould, Garcia, Damon, S. Caan, C. Affleck, Zeta-Jones
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Running time: 125 min.
(2.5/5)
Rewatch (2010):
(1.5/5)
Steven Soderbergh has been my absolute favorite living director for some time now. It seems that in my eyes, everything he touches shines like the contents of Marsellus Wallace’ briefcase. So it’s always been with some trepidation that I bring up the only title in his filmography that I’ve always regretted watching: the second in his “Ocean’s” franchise: Ocean’s 12. The last time I had seen the picture was when it was released theatrically back in 2004. I remember being quite upset as I left the theater; not really understanding what I’d just seen and being a little miffed at why it wasn’t nearly as good as the previous film. I’ve been bad mouthing the film ever since without ever giving it a second look. Having matured in my cinematic tastes and now better able to understand where and why the visceral reactions come from me the way they do from a film, I decided it was only fair to give the only dark spot in my Soderbergh repertoire of knowledge a second chance and see if my memory serves or if this was just a film I didn’t get at the time.
This sequel starts off just about where the previous left off. Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) has located the Ocean gang and has given them two weeks to return all of the money they stole from him or they will die horrible, slow deaths by his hand. Since much of the money has been spent already and the crew is too hot to work in the States, to save their necks they head off to Europe to start a series of heists designed to make back the money they had already squandered. Upon arriving in Europe, they find that another thief, The Night Fox (Vincent Cassel), is always one step ahead of them; stealing what they want before they do. And to make matters even more intolerable and desperate, an American investigator (Zeta-Jones) is hot on their tale and unknowingly closer to them than she realizes as she is involved in a romance with the Brad Pitt character. The tale twists as The Night Fox proposes a challenge to the Ocean’s: snag an “impossible to steal” jeweled egg before he does and he’ll win their freedom from Benedict. And so the caper begins… sort of.
**SPOILERS TO FOLLOW**
**SPOILERS TO FOLLOW**
Every aspect of this film is simply trying too hard. If I were told to write a one sentence review, “trying too hard” would be exactly what I would put on the paper. It’s really as simple as that. For starters, we’ll begin with the dialogue. Though difficult to put a finger on precisely why this dialogue feels strained and forced, nevertheless, it is. Every character feels like a shell of themselves from the previous film. The wit is not funny, the sarcasm is boring and the banter borders on annoying. I feel like Soderbergh wrote the dialogue in his sleep while dreaming about the first film. But this time, he added deadly serious stakes to the mix, which creates tension; removing all of the fun factor and just adding dread.
The locales. Since the movie doesn’t take place in Vegas this time around, all of the sparkle and pizzazz is gone. We’re left with cold, drab locales that aren’t even charming or historic in that old-world, comforting way (like they are in something like Paris je’Taime). They’re simply washed out, gray and boring with no attention to detail or character. In most films that wouldn’t bother me – in fact I might even appreciate it (Ronin) – but when you’re trying to have a big, flashy, caper film with all of the big names speaking in splashy and quirky dialogue from the first movie, one is just left feeling empty and not caring. It might as well have taken place in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Aesthetics. This sort of rides side by side with the previous paragraph, but put simply, the movie just doesn’t look good. The compostion is cluttered, boring and drab. The set pieces are generic and look like props any low budget film could get their hands on. Look at the following images and you get a good idea of what pretty much the entire picture looks like: unimpassioned and gloomy.
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The music. It’s loud, bombastic and to use my fallback adjective for this review again, annoying. It’s used as filler much of the time and adds no sense of style to the movie like it did before. It’s the same type of music, but every time it’s used here, it’s only in a dismal or disastrous situation for our characters that we’re just not feeling much sympathy for at this point. I was actually forced to turn down my theater’s receiver; cutting the volume literally in half in order to get through a couple of these extended montages of annoyance and unnecessity that just seem to needlessly drag on forever.
The acting. Each actor (with the exception of Vincent Cassel and Matt Damon) is completely phoning in their performance. They all got to get on a party plane and head to Europe for a few weeks under the studio’s dime simply to have a good time and sort of shoot a movie while they’re there. And it shows. In fact, I would wager that some of the actors didn’t even want to be there (Carl Reiner, Elliot Gould, Bernie Mac) as evidenced by their lack of screen time and characterization within the script. As an example, take a look at the character of Basher, played by Don Cheadle. In the first film his expertise is needed and he is full of sarcasm and dry humor. Here, though he looks the same and has the same accent, you’d swear it isn’t him. It’s as if he’s actually a replicant on/in Solaris. Why is he even there? What purpose does he serve? He spray paints a security camera at one point. All but gone too, is the bickering, dynamic duo of Scott Caan and Casey Affleck. It’s used once or twice just to be there. It isn’t fun or interesting or particularly meaningful as it is in the other films. And it’s not just these three characters. It is all of them. At one point in the film, Brad Pitt says to George Clooney, “We’re forcing it.” To which Clooney replies, “yeah, we’re forcing it.” This is the entire movie’s premise in a nutshell.
The script. Leaving aside the lameness of the relationship strain between Pitt and Zeta-Jones that worked so well (both in chemistry and narrative) in the first movie between Clooney and Roberts, the story is unabashed wankery defined. The heists make no sense and in a couple of scenes I didn’t even understand what was happening. Or it happened so fast that I ended up shaking my head and trying to gauge whether or not I had just dozed off and missed a few minutes. You’re going to raise an entire building a couple of feet so you can shoot an arrow inside only to find out someone else already did it a few minutes ago? Ok, whatever. And I can’t not mention the stupidity of a side-side-plot involving the greatest thief of all time (played by Albert Finney) who turns out in the very very end (in the most ridiculous of coincidental twists) to be the father of Zeta-Jones’ character – who has devoted her life to becoming one of the world’s greatest heist detectives. Their reunion is unbelievably contrived and strained. Is this supposed to be an amazing coincidence or is it supposed to be retarded? Because it is most certainly the latter. Are we supposed to be welling up with emotion and thinking, “aww isn’t that sweet?” Well no, it’s not sweet. It’s lame, annoying and vomit inducing.
This is the closest Soderbergh has ever come to duplicating a Michael Haneke picture. There are so many red herrings laid out and so much (as it turns out) needless bumbling about and audience poking that I just felt gypped by the end of the movie. Pretty much everything we see in the last 85 minutes of the movie is only there to dupe the audience. As we find out in the end, the characters already stole the jeweled egg before The Night Fox even offered up the challenge. Believable. So everything that happens in the entire premise of the movie is just an act. This makes about as much sense as an epileptic building a bonfire in the nude. Why, while in total seclusion, would these guys continue on with the charade? It’s like the ultimate in method acting. Are they doing it only to convince themselves that they’re on a heist to be believable as possible? No, they’re doing it because otherwise there would be no movie to string along an audience with.
Tangent. Now, to give some credit, due to a certain plot twist this act has to be amped up and tweaked in a humorous way in which Tess Ocean (played by Julia Roberts) pretends to be a movie star named Julia Roberts in a ruse to get closer to the target. You can see this coming from a mile away but I remember it being the one thing I liked about the movie in my first viewing. And you know what, I liked the idea this time around as well (which also introduces Bruce Willis as himself to give the sequence even a little more star power and intrigue). But as I dissect the film here, though I do like the idea and I think it’s played out well and it is kind of fun (and funny), now I realize that it’s only there as a smoke screen to cover up the fact that the rest of the movie is terrible. So now I’m thinking I don’t like this sequence as much as I thought I did since it’s being used merely as a clever gimmick (continued in the closing credits) to distract me.
The entire spectacle is all just one big charade. The problem is that the audience is not in on it. The charade is played out so that we’re the ones being conned. We don’t even get to along for the ride during the caper. Worse, how they did it is spoon fed to us during a poorly shot and convoluted recap with no dialogue in about 4 minutes. And cue the forementioned annoying and loud music. If you like being fucked with and you see the genius behind the curtain when realizing that at the end of the movie you were totally duped, then yeah, this movie might work for you. And had the other two movies in the franchise not existed, maybe that would be my reaction as well. Look, I’m all for Soderbergh’s experimentation. I love those types of films from him (Schizopolis, Full Frontal, The Good German, etc.), but when the rules of a franchise are already laid out (particularly in retrospect after the third film was released), bending those rules and completely dismissing what you previously promised your audience is unfair and not amusing. You’ve only succeeded in confusing and stupefying me; and pissing me off a little bit too.
I don’t want to say I hate this movie, but I’m really struggling to find much I enjoyed. It has some moments. Cassel ballet/break-dancing his way through a sequence of randomly moving laser alarms being one of them and of course despite the crappy dialogue and the sub-par acting that we’ve come to expect from this crew, nevertheless it is still Pitt, Clooney, Cheadle, Affleck, Mac, et. al. and that still does work on some level, but all in all one has to look at this movie and see the inadequacies, laziness and frankly, ineptitude and wonder what Soderbergh was thinking here. I truly believe he really wasn’t thinking; and that’s the problem. It was merely an excuse to grab a huge paycheck, have some fun abroad and try an experiment. It’s the only experiment from Soderbergh that I find to be a total failure. And that more than anything else is what pisses me off.
Wasn’t the experiment simply to see if the studio would actually pay THEM millions of dollars each to take such a vacation together? In that respect, their experiment work.
You are simply oh, so wrong. Tempting to re-watch this movie simply for a point-by-point rebuttal.
You should. The movie is simply lazy. Again though, I admit to A) holding it up to a higher standard because it’s Soderbergh and B) holding it up against its predecessor, Ocean’s Eleven. Take away those two caveats and it’s about an average film.
@Andrew James
Heh, and there’s me who LOVES Ocean’s Twelve and finds Traffic to be highly overrated. Go figure. I would even go so far to say that I like it – in ways – more than the way first film. The latter is probably better technically but the off-kilter, almost blase nature of the second just strikes the right cords with me. It’s like a bunch of celebrities on holiday (much more in the vein of what the original Rat Pack Ocean’s movie was really about) and there just happens to be a plot in there, complete with a cool-as-ice villain/performance delivered by Vincent Cassel.
Also, and I know this is something A LOT of people (including you, Andrew, as you mentioned it in your re-review) but, I LOVE LOVE LOVE the throwing in of the twist of what actually was going on the whole time at the end. It was like they said, “Oh wait, this is a sequel to Ocean’s Eleven which had a great twist. Quick, we need one in there at the end!” I know that sounds irritating – and for a lot folks it is – but I find it hilarious and very clever in a strange sort of way (perhaps this just makes sense in my own head…).
I’d take Twelve over the fun and entertaining but ultimately regurgitating Thirteen any day of the week.
I don’t know how you can seriously argue against my points on the acting and dialogue. It’s simply lazy and boring. They so clearly aren’t into it – partly because their characters are so hollow and pointless. Seriously, what does Bernie Mac do in the entire picture? I don’t remember him even in the movie, but somehow he is in that jail cell with them at the end. The Japanese grease man does nothing, Cheadle does nothing, the computer whiz guy does nothing (does he even have any dialogue?). The whole movie is just a hollow shell of its previous self.
i find Oceans 12 kind of confusing near the end but overall I didnt see what the big fuss was about. I liked it.
This movie is shit. It makes no sense that the girl looks like Julia Roberts, yet Danny Ocean doesn’t look like George Clooney.
Catherine Zeta-Jones is pretty stunning in the movie, but the character arc is so grating it hurts to watch.
Wow, if you can’t get the joke in Oceans 12, sorry for you. The film is playful and light and fluffy and loose. Nothing wrong with that, it’s not like Oceans 11 was Citizen Kane, in fact, the ‘heist’ in O11 more or less wooshes the air out of the film, they wisely jettisoned the heist out of O12. And while O13 is about the same as O11, it is the best looking of the three pictures, I love the look Soderbergh got with that one. But if I was going to watch any of them again (I’ve seen all three of them exactly once each) I’d watch O12. But then ah, fuck it’ I’d rather be watching Out of Sight or the Limey for that type of fix anyway. Nicky Katt in The Limey is funnier than any of ‘em in all three of those movies, yes, including Don Cheadle or Scott Caan.
It was a pretty funny joke when Zeta-jones had to be emotional when encountering her long-lost dad or whatever.
Just wait until Bob joins in on this tussle…
I myself have yet to revisit it after my first viewing, which didn’t leave the greatest of impressions, but I’ve heard and read Bob’s finely defended points that it’s an art film more than anything else so often that I’m willing to give it a second chance.
Oh dude…You’re killing me man…
First of all, I do appreciate you re-watching this. I think part of the reason came from my choosing it in my faves of the decade list – you had said you never got into it but were due for a re-watch. So thanks…
But I really believe you’ve totally missed the point. Actually many of them.
1) “Why, while in total seclusion, would these guys continue on with the charade?”
Actually, that’s explained right there in the film. Remember at the end when they flashback to Clooney and Pitt talking to Finney? He tells them specifically “you must act like he is watching you at ALL times”. Considering they’ve set up the world of the film straight from the start (Cassel was able to find every single one of Ocean’s Eleven by himself), it’s a place where Cassel can do just about anything. And Clooney and Pitt are always one step ahead of everybody. Those are the rules of this world. So they act like he is watching them every step of the way from the point they talk with Finney (6 days left). And that includes when they are in the warehouse. Remember also the scene when Cassel is practising his ballet moves on the pool deck? We see a monitor on the table showing the guys in their warehouse. You even hear Damon’s voice coming from it just before the picture meshes from the monitor to inside the warehouse and Damon’s voice continues without a hitch (though it changes from coming through a speaker to now being normal sounding). So it’s right there in the movie as to why they do that…
2) You mention the bland looking shots. Man, you really cherry picked those. What about all the ones in my post that I linked to before? The use of blues and oranges as contrasting colours? The great intros to different locations (the city scape of Amsterdam changing with every letter of the city’s name)? The style of this film is the substance in many ways. I’m exaggerating somewhat when I call it an experimental art film, but that is what he’s doing – he’s playing with form and techniques to tell the story. Actually my write-up for the film there is probably a better defense of it than anything I’m blathering on about here…
3) The link between Zeta-Jones and her father Finney is a major part of the film. Yes, she’s a detective – mainly because her mother hated criminals (ie. her ex-husband and Zeta-Jones father)…They couldn’t be trusted. And yet in her policing tactics, she uses several of her own criminal behaviours – stealing Pitt’s phone, signing that form for her boss, etc. She’s actually more similar to her Dad.
4) You mention twice about how it’s just an excuse for these guys to go out and have fun. Well, I felt invited along with them. You didn’t. I can’t help but feel that you were sitting with your arms crossed complaining to the TV saying “They didn’t invite me…They didn’t invite me…Well, I didn’t want to go to their stupid movie set anyway!” Like Kurt said, if you can’t join in with the humour…
5) I love David Holmes’ score. Actually, I love it for all three of the Ocean movies (though my fave is 12). That frantic music as Clooney is racing away on the train, Cassel’s ballet music, etc. All its super-cool 60′s vibes (bongos, blaring horms, waka-chuka guitars) bring the movie to another level for me.
Those who hated 12 (like yourself) wanted a heist film. It’s not a heist film. The heists do fit logically into this world they’ve created for these characters and everything is done for a reason, but that’s not this film’s reason for being there. Soderbergh took the heist story framework and used it to play and experiment. I loved what he did and enjoyed hanging out with these guys. It’s a breezy, clever, art film. Lazy? No. Not at all.
It’s too bad you missed the boat on it and also actually missed specific details in the film.
Now let’s go grab a pint and tell Kurt why he’s wrong about The Box…B-)
Well Bob, I can see your point on a couple of these “issues,” but it still doesn’t explain the terribleness in dialogue and acting. The characters just aren’t charming or fun to watch (aside from Cassel and Damon). They had me feeling tense (in a bad way) the whole time. And again, if the other films didn’t exist then maybe there would be no problem. But they take these characters and style and setting and completely change the rules (unlike Kurt, I think O11 is awesome, shiny, glittery, clever, funny, and well thought out). They don’t really even use these great characters to their potential.
As for the pics, I just went to the Yahoo movie page and grabbed almost all they had. I agree that there are a couple of cool shots in the film, but 95% of the cinematography is bland, dreary and cluttered (i.e. the opposite of what I came to love about the splashiness of the first film). Then best scene in the movie is Cassel dancing through the lasers – totally reminiscent of the first film. Where is more stuff like that?
Jandy summed it up exactly. I think Soderbergh IS trying to be funny, exciting and clever and it just comes out as forced and none of these adjective describe this movie. I go back to the Clooney and Pitt dialogue exchange: “We’re forcing it.” “Yeah, we’re forcing it.” I’m convinced that exchange was not an accident.
Wait a minute, I hated the Box! I’m in the rare majority here!
Well said Bob. Ocean’s 12 is one of those great ‘mainstream film experiments’ They are not always successful (GvS’s Psycho, Tom Green’s Freddy Got Fingered, Zodiac, The Thin Red Line, Miami Vice, Public Enemies, The Assassination of Jesse James, The Thin Red Line, The Fountain, heck Soderbergh himself has several of these: Che, Solaris, the Informant! — you can argue about the success of any of those films but they are not normal $30M+ films!)
It’s the Ocean’s film for people who found Oceans 11 to be rather bland and it is a filmmaker that refuses to give his audience exactly what they want, rather he’d take them onto the other side of the mirror. I know that is why the bulk of the audience turned on this film.
BREEZY is a good word, and there is nothing wrong with that.
I fail to see any cleverness. Saying that Julia Roberts looks like Julia Roberts is probably the LEAST clever device I can think of to make the non-story work out. You say of course that it’s not about story, which I’m fine with, I can roll with that, and it does explain why it’s so horrendously boring, but then unless you’re getting a boner seing movie stars on screen laughing it up and playing grab-ass with what can only be described as mediocre and rarely funny dialogue, you’re going to be bored with it.
And trying to make Zeta-Jones’ character emotionally attached to things like Brad Pitt and a lost father seems like the very opposite of breezy to me.
IN a movie that treats its criminals like casual celebrities, and constantly postures for gloss and not taking itself too serious (That would be the OCEANS 11 remake btw), it certainly does lend itself a jumping point for Soderbergh and company to further start blurring the line.
I can understand that breaking down the walls between the movie and the viewer is grating to some. I believe it gave the rather mundane First Oceans Movie a much-needed kick in the pants, I personally do not accept this sort of free-form experimentation to be desperate, rather innovative (in Blockbusters terms) — even a logical next step, methinks.
“but then unless you’re getting a boner seing movie stars on screen laughing it up and playing grab-ass with what can only be described as mediocre and rarely funny dialogue, you’re going to be bored with it.”
I have to say Henrik, that’s a pretty impressive way of shutting down any possibility of back and forth discussion. Believe it or not, there is middle ground (I’ll leave it to you to decide whether or not you think my pants are bulging when I watch the film).
I think there are many clever aspects to Ocean’s 12. I like how they quickly set up the rules in this world (so that you know that the impossible is possible), the visual methods of storytelling (the previously mentioned way of indicating that Cassel was always monitoring them), how they don’t feel they have to spell everything out and expect the viewer will keep up.
As for the Zeta-Jones relationship with her father, I didn’t mean to state that it was supposed to be an earth-shattering emotional moment. Just that there was more underneath her response than Andrew had seen in it.
Like Kurt said, I absolutely see how someone may not enjoy the film. The whole Julia Roberts angle can definitely be a sticking point if you don’t like her (I’m relatively ambivalent, so it didn’t bug me). If you dislike Pitt or Clooney, yeah you’ll be in for a long ride (I like Pitt and love Clooney, so they worked for me). But I don’t agree with the dismissals of the film as lazy, boring, bland, etc. You know, pretty much everything Andrew said…B-)
I might have to rewatch this after all, but seeing in the theatre, my reaction was much like Andrew’s. “Trying too hard” is exactly what I thought. It felt like it was trying to be funny and wasn’t, like it was trying to be exciting and wasn’t, like it was trying to be clever and wasn’t. Sounds like Bob and Kurt are saying that it isn’t actually trying to be any of these things…at least not in the same way that mainstream movies usually are.
It was actually the Julia Roberts lookalike moment that lost me completely, though. I was like really? It broke the fourth wall in a way that felt forced and unfunny. But I’m more into meta-narrative now than I was then, so maybe it would work for me now.
I also loved Ocean’s 11 – it was tight, shiny, funny, and well-paced. I can tell Kurt didn’t think much of it; Bob, I’m curious what you think of Ocean’s 12. Is it that if you liked the first, you won’t like the second, but if you didn’t like the first, you might like the second?
And I like O13 too. Not as good as 11, but it got back to its roots and I appreciated that – even bringing back Cassel which was a nice touch.
BTW – Starting mid next week I’m going to dive into my next rewatched and reconsidered series. This is fun.
I love 11 and 13, but 12 is an absolute pile of shit. If you buy the three pack of the series, you can watch 11 and 13 and use the disc for 12 to do cocaine off of. The two girls in this film ruin it for me. It’s not fun and it’s confusing as hell and I hate it.
I greatly enjoyed Ocean’s 11. Agree with everything you and Andrew say about it and it sounds like I like it better than Kurt. But here’s the interesting thing…I only liked it the first time I saw it, but when I returned to it – AFTER I saw and loved 12 – I really liked 11. I can re-watch it now and get a great deal of fun from it. 13 is my least favourite, though Kurt is right about the look of it – candy coloured and quite beautiful (for the most part that is).
So I like ‘em both, but they are different movies. I see what you’re saying to a certain extent Andrew – if you loved the first and wanted more, 12 could certainly have thrown you for a loop. But if you can get past that (and I really encourage people to do that), I find it actually stands on its own (there are things carried over from 11 that you would miss though).
And I agree that many of the characters aren’t used to full capacity in 12 – one of its falings I might agree with. Not sure if that was intentional, something they had to work around due to all their schedules (heck of a big and busy cast). Bad dialogue and acting though? Guess we’re deep into subjective territory here, but I enjoyed the heck out of it. Granted, much of it was dependent on what you thought of the actors – sometimes they were just kind of playing themselves I suppose. But moments like the one at the train station where Clooney is asking people how old they think he is were very funny for me – the timing between the characters, Cheadle’s expression after saying “only from the neck up”, Afleck’s “they put Yen in a handbag” comment. What can I say – it tweaks my funny bone.
Still not sure why you don’t like the cinematography though Andrew…Maybe we’re each playing off our biases towards the film, but I think there’s plenty of great stuff: Cassel’s story told in flashback with the many women he’s been with; Cassel driving up to his house at dusk (everything blue around him with specks of orange); the night time burglary of the rich/agoraphobic guy’s house; etc.
I don’t see the forcing it comparison. I think there really is a loose vibe. A lot of people complain that they like they just made it to amuse themselves – not the worst criticism you can make though, since you shouldn’t try too hard to please the entirety of your audience (we’ve all seen how bad that can end up). Hell, the best of the Warner Broithers Looney Tunes were made by a bunch of people who wanted to amuse themselves (OK, let me be clear, I’m not putting Ocean’s 12 on the same plateau as Looney Tunes – just making a point).
Anyway, I think 13 feels the “laziest” in some ways. But that may be Pacino’s fault – I just didn’t really enjoy him in it. I kinda respected Garcia’s bad guy in the first two. Pacino’s had nothing interesting about him.
But yeah, civil disagreement about perspectives on film is indeed fun! I’m enjoying this. And it helps me look at one of my favourite movies in a different way.
I don’t dislike Oceans 11, but it doesn’t have nearly as much entertainment value as Soderbergh’s previous OUT OF SIGHT, and as someone else mentioned above, the ‘bunch of celebrities on vacation’ vibe from the original rat pack Ocean’s 11 is far more channeled into Oceans 12. But then again, the Rat Pack’s O11 is widely considered a dud, so I guess Soderbergh made his remake palatable and enjoyable to a wide audience, then decided to get more experimental with O12. Or something like that…
i am boggled by the love for this movie. i agree with the people that say these were a bunch of friends that made a crappy movie for the sake of the studio paying for a vacation. i was legitimately pissed at the “you look like Julia Roberts” scene.
it’s like examining the intellectual value of Spongebob Squarepants.
There is a time and place for breezy experimenting, is is precisely from these experiments that other things come out from. I can understand people not necessarily enjoying it (But maintain that the Julia Roberts look-alike was pretty adventurous (audacious even), and totally ties into what these films are kinda-sorta-tapping-into).
The fact that a Danny Ocean movie can even get people talking is kind of amazing.