Review of Ocean's Eight (2018) by Michael M — 17 Jun 2018

First off, Hollywood seems confused by the desire for more female driven movies. Wanting more women in movies doesn't just mean gender swapping famous male-driven movies, and I worry that by movies like this and the Ghostbusters remake not being smash hits they'll get the wrong message. I could go on for a long time about that, but let's move on. How's the movie itself? It's fine. It's just fine.

Ocean's 8 is nothing great. It's better than 12, more memorable than 13, but not as good as 11. The biggest drawback really is the cast. The Rat Pack classic had an established group playing these roles, and the Clooney remake did something similar by largely having Clooney and his famous friends in the roles. Here it mostly just feels like a random assortment of actresses you'll probably recognize, none of whom have any established chemistry. And then there's Rihanna. To be fair, she's actually not that bad in this, but I'm so sick of her popping up in big budget movies with an unearned sense of credibility. Most of the cast are actually pretty good, and Sandra Bullock and Anne Hathaway even go a little out of character playing roles that I'm not used to seeing them in which was actually very refreshing to see, but I never got the sense of fun and comradery that I did with the other Ocean's crews. This isn't because they're women, it's because they're just a random collection. They have enough chemistry to make the film work, but never go above and beyond like the original.

How's the heist though? It's fine. Well, a little better than fine. It's pretty fun. Once you get into the movie, it is fun. It's an Ocean's movie once again, so the formula is familiar, but it's enjoyable to watch. It doesn't get as convoluted and stupid as Ocean's 12, it keeps it fairly straight with a few twists and turns to keep it interesting and overall it works.

That's the film as a whole: it works. It's an aggressively competent movie, but nothing more. I give it a moderately positive rating because I did enjoy myself while I was watching it, but nothing about it ever really went above and beyond. If you like heist films, you'll probably like it fine.