Ocean's 12: A Rant

Finally saw the much-awaited Ocean's 12 tonight with my bro at GSC Summit.

*START side note*
I gotta say the GSC chain of cinemas make exceedingly good Caramel Popcorn. The seats might be crap and the theaters might be small, but verdammt(!) their caramel coated popcorn beats TGVs and any other cinema's hands down!

Although cinemas in OU, Sunway Pyramid, Mid Valley and KLCC might offer better seats, spacious theaters and shedloads of hot girls to gaggle at while lining up for the
tickets, (unfortunately, most hot chicks would be in line WITH their boyfriends or be in a GROUP of chicks making it kinda hard to approach them without looking like a retard), GSC Summit is o.k.

Oh, and cos of the aforementioned reasons above, the theaters in GSC Summit are usually empty except for a few rows, allowing for maximum enjoyment of the movies.

Nothing pisses me off more than a group of uneducated Mat Rempits sitting behind me making jokes, laughing and sniggering out loud or talking at the most important
parts of a movie. These ppl should be shot and not allowed to reproduce! ;-P

But then again, I'm just a tight-assed anal movie geek which might explain my extreme views on these cinema perpetrators.

*END side note*

Neways, on first impressions, Ocean's 12 was an enjoyable star-filled ride.

Upon deeper examination however, you realise that the movie is deeply flawed and is just an excuse for Clooney, Pitt, Damon, Roberts and Zeta Jones to make another few million dollars without even breaking a sweat. (Oh and also a chance for those not-so famous of the Twelve such as Casey Affleck, Don Cheadle, that Chinese dude, etc. to get a paying role in Hwood after a dearth of work for some time for them, after the last movie).

In my humble opinion, the scriptwriter REALLY dropped the ball on this one which resulted in the mess that is Ocean's 12.

The Good:

Having all the big stars together was great. I mean with this many superstars, how can a movie be bad right ? Catherine Zeta Jones was burning up the screen everytime she appeared with her sensuously sexy curves. Clooney and Pitt were the same roguishly handsome bastards that they are on screen in this installment as like the last. Matt Damon's character got more screen time and actually saved the day. Andy Garcia was o.k as the menacing Terry Benedict.

Kudos must be given to Vincent Cassel however, for his potrayal of the Night Fox. He pulls off the charmingly rich but annoying European playboy thief really, really well. And boy, he sure must have gotten in shape to pull off all those capoeira moves on-screen.

Another plus was Steven Soderbergh's directing. You could really feel like he was enjoying himself the way he handled the camera in each scene. You could see how he was experimenting with camera angles, how to cut from the present to flashbacks (my favourite was Zeta Jones' flashback of the first time she met Pitt),etc.

Soderbergh really went back to his indie roots and got to cut loose on the direction. He managed to pull off some really cool scenes and made them his own trademark. (Note: Watch the opening scene with Pitt and Zeta Jones again and see how the camera moves into focus as Pitt kisses Zeta Jones, then pans out again, followed by the freeze frame when Pitt decides to jump out of the window. Really cool effect)

The Bad:

The non-existent plot.

Terry Benedict manages to catch up onto all the Ocean's 12 thanks to the help of the Night Fox, and they have to pay Terry everything they stole from him WITH interest.

So what do they do ? Fly off to Europe and try do a few small jobs...suddenly midway, it is revealed that the Night Fox is pissed off with them and is the guy who actually started all their troubles in the first place.

Then the story jumps to another plot point where they try to beat the Night Fox and forget about doing multiple small heists cos the Night Fox will beat them to it anyway.

WTF ?

The Ugly:

At the end it is revealed that Ocean's 12 managed to beat the Night Fox (after all his intense preparation) because his mentor is actualy Zeta Jones' father and all this letting his student challenge Ocean's 12 (and let them get into trouble with Terry Benedict in the first place) was cos he wants Ocean's 12 bring Zeta Jones back to him ?

WTF ?!

And how come Clooney and Pitt are NOT pissed off at the Mentor for revealing their positions (by alowing Night Fox to contact Terry Benedict) in the first place?

The more I write this, the more dizzy I get from trying to make sense of the whole storyline.

It does NOT make any sense...events do not happen in a logical manner and things JUST happen cos it has to happen to set up the next scene.

Plus NO tension was felt (unlike in the 1st movie where everytime Ocean's 11 got into a minor mishap, ur heart skipped a beat) since all the heist and answer to problems were explained in flashback. Ocean's 12 would repeatedly in this movie get into trouble with the cops or have a problem and suddenly they would fast forward to them already overcoming the problem and how they actually did it would only be revealed in flashback a few moments later.

One BIG plot point which really got to me however was how they used Julia Robert's character Tess Ocean and broke the 4th wall of moviemaking by acknowledging that Ocean's 12 exist in the real world. So they use the fact that Tess LOOKS like Julia Roberts and is a celebrity in the real world to get into the museum that they were going to steal the jewels from.

I mean...HELLO!

If Tess Ocean looks like Julia 'farkin' Roberts...then by DEFAULT Danny Ocean looks like George Clooney, Rusty looks like Brad Pitt, Matt Damon's character looks like Matt Damon,etc.

So can you explain to me, how thieves who look like Hwood celebrities can walk all over Europe and plan multiple heists without being mobbed by fans or dogged by media and paparazzi ?!

At that point of the movie, I just gave up trying to make sense of things and just enjoy the movie for what it is : a piece of Hollywood money-making machine.

At the end of the day, my sis say's I'm too much of an anal-film fanboy and should learn to shut up and just accept Hwood movies for what they are: mindless entertainment.

I guess she's right and I digress.

Must remember to leave my brain at home the next time I go watch movies at the cinema again!

;-p