Review of Ocean's Eight (2018) by Martin W — 07 Jan 2019

Well let me start first with my acknowledgement that we need more movies with female leads, roles, directors, etc. This is about the only thing that Ocean's 8 has going for it.

I get the concept that Hollywood has been lacking in movies with strong female roles. Diversity is important. However when it is poorly executed, it only hurts the effort.

Ocean's 8 is a clearly a rip off, as opposed to a homage to, the orignal Ocean's 11. Gary Ross (writer of story and screenplay) clearly didn't put much thought into how a master heist would be designed or pulled off. Cliche problems would arise for the characters, and instead of fleshing out how these issues would be solved, he simply has the deus ex machina pop in and offer a solution on a silver platter. For example, the necklace they are trying to steal has a locking mechanism with a magnetic key of sorts. No problem though, because conveniently the hacker of the group, played by Rhianna, has a sister who is a tech whiz. None of this has been spoken about until the issie arises and seems more like an afterthought than a plot progression.

That's only on example of a ln overall theme of plot "twists" that are shoehorned into the movie. And as is expected in any Ocean's movie, there will be a revelation at the end, showing how the thieves outwitted everyone including the audience. However in this rendition, the ending seemed to be as horribly devised as the rest of the movie. Instead of only stealing the necklace, they end up having robbed the museum the heist takes place in as well. This was managed by introducing a last minute character (Shaobo Qin) to do the dirty work of leaping through lasers to swipe the jewels. It's sloppy writing and poorly executed.

The other issues with this movie are the stereotypes used in the writing. From the rastafarian hacker (becauses she's black?) to the idea that fashion and chic clothing will blind the audience to all of the obvious plot holes.

Too much liberty was taken with this story and it seems me that the movie was the desperate attempt by the studio to appear progressive than to make a quality movie.

I want to see more awesome movies with women in driver's seat. I just want them to be good.