Doze Homens e Outro Segredo

Three years after Ocean's Eleven the gang's all back for more in this sequel. This time around the elusive group of thieves and con artists reunite and travel abroad to Europe to try and pull off another elaborate heist after vengeful casino mogul Terry Benedict (García) tracks them down looking for reimbursement. Little do they dream that they'll face stiff competition from a self-proclaimed criminal mastermind (Cassel) who's determined to try and upstage them. The latest in a long line of tepid Hollywood sequels; the cast may have had fun making this film but that doesn't mean the audience will as it drags on for over two hours with endless story lulls, self-conscious humor, and banal dialogue. One particularly embarrassing in-joke falls flat and leaves you wondering just how desperate the producers were to earn cheap laughs. The same group of gifted actors that made the original so special are wasted here, as the needlessly inextricable "script" lacks any wit, style, or sense of purpose. **

The 2001 remake of Lewis Milestone's "Ocean's Eleven" is a good adventure, with action, comedy and thriller in an updated screenplay. When this sequel was released, I was impressed with the number of stars and locations mostly in Europe, and certainly a huge budget. Unfortunately, this movie does not have the most relevant component: a decent screenplay. The beginning is confused and most of the situations and dialogs are not funny, being indeed ridiculous; when the execution of the heist is disclosed in the end, it is ludicrous; and the absurd plot itself is totally unbelievable and does not work. The direction is also very bad, with horrible and weird movements of camera. Steven Soderbergh began his career with exceptional works, but his last films are very deceptive ("Full Frontal"(2002); "Solaris"(2002)). My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Doze Homens e Outro Segredo" ("Twelve Men and Other Secret")

The scene between Danny, Rusty, Linus, and Matsui where Danny and Rusty laugh uncomfortably at Matsui's gibberish joke says it all. Everyone in this movie expected us to enjoy whatever was put in front of us, because this is just a "safe picture", as Matt Damon's boyfriend would say would say. So, what went wrong? There are so many obvious in-jokes, cheap jokes, leaps of logic that even die hard Ocean's Eleven fans should feel cheated. The f**k scene with Basher is a good example of the sledgehammer type of joking this movie expects us to swallow graciously. These stars think that we are so involved with them that all they need to do is show us that they can make fun of themselves. I don't know the name of Julia Roberts' daughter; and I don't care. All those scenes with Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis are painful in their smugness. This movie feels like a bunch of friends got together and decided, on a whim, to make a movie. Steven Soderbergh should get full marks for making Ocean's Eleven work and full blame for this sequel. He should have told everyone to work first and play second.

It's inevitable, isn't it? After the success of the remake of Ocean's Eleven, out comes the sequel three years later. I liked the style of the teaser trailer (and was probably one of the only ones who didn't mind the name), so naturally, I was looking forward to the movie. Naturally, it's a sequel, so it's inferior to the original (which I liked more than the original of the original). The entire cast is back (plus one more, obviously) for the necessary foreign-country locations and trendy scene transitions. There's the constant music, the people with the general European accents (well, villains), and every other caper movie cliché in the books.

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his eleven/twelve compadres are forced to pay back the money that they stole from Terry Benedict's (Andy Garcia) casinos three years earlier. To get the money, they have to steal it in Europe.

Where the first movie was fun, this sequel was mildly entertaining. It went on a little long, but was never boring. It's watchable (as all crime movies like these should be), but not really entertaining. I wasn't having fun while watching a lot of Ocean's Twelve. I wasn't bored, either. I was in Limbo of the movie world. All of the Vegas glitz added to the first, and here it's drab European backgrounds. Steven Soderbergh's directing also makes the film harder to enjoy. The film's choppy-we don't see events that happened until after the fact (if that makes any sense), and there are so many subplots and characters with similar sounding names that eventually we stop caring. Whenever a movie makes me do that, I usually focus more in on the fun aspects of the movie. And sure, the movie had its fun moments, and never left me bored, but overall, it just lacked that ultra-cool style that the first one had.

Then again, every actor's back in cool form. Catherine Zeta-Jones is the newbie here, and although her character is barely defined, she still manages to be cool. George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt (being on screen probably more than anyone else), Matt Damon-they're all cool. But it's obvious that this isn't the best sequel that could have been made for Ocean's Eleven-the movie was originally written for a completely different movie, and then readapted to a sequel. Because of that, there aren't really any reminders on who these people were. I remembered Clooney, Roberts, Garcia, and a few character names and quirks (such as Pitt's obsessive eating), but, really, who were these people? Did Soderbergh think that we would all rush out to see the first one before seeing this? I'll bet as many people did that as the number who went to see the Russian Solyaris after Soderbergh made Solaris.

The caper this time around isn't as interesting (the major one doesn't come in until halfway through), nor as easy to follow. In fact, the whole movie's basically a convoluted mess. The subplot about Isabel's father, things like that...if there's a definition of worthless, that's it. Also, that "Julia Roberts" bit went on for too long. We got the joke there. At that moment, I think that the movie thought it was funny enough to abandon basically the entire plot and go with a ten minute schtick, when there was basically no other humor in the movie. Still, Ocean's Twelve isn't terrible, and can offer a good time if you're the right person.

My rating: 6/10 Rated PG-13 for language.

This time the con is on the fans! This sequel is specifically made to make easy money and guess what it comes from you! no thought has gone into cooking up a story -no thought has gone into attempting to give any type of direction or even editing - just a bunch of superstar smarty pants have got together to figure out how much their star power can get them in their spare time. Of course since die-hard fans of Oceans 11 (such as myself) will have to see this movie even if it is to just believe how bad it really is its a no brainer for the producers to dish any hogwash onto our plates - its a well thought of commercial strategy but very cold blooded and callous on the fans. Its extremely painful to sit through - the best performance is by Matt Damon in one particular scene which is the highest point the movie ever reaches -I hope they make an Oceans 13 and really think of a nice story this time around as a sort of apology for their bad behavior this time - or bring out an apology to all the fans they conned!