Review of Ocean's Twelve (2004) by James R — 16 Jun 2018

I always remember this film as the weakest of the Oceans films and while I still think that statement is true this film was a bit more enjoyable than the first time I aw it (it's been 14 years). The movie still suffers from some plot pacing and overall story, but I'll get to that in a second.

The film takes place 3 years after the events of Oceans Eleven (2001). Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) has found all 11 of the original crew that robbed him in the first movie and given them an ultimatum.

Pay him back his money plus interest....or die. So it's up to Danny (George Clooney) & Rusty (Brad Pitt) to get the crew organized to rob a museum of a rare egg all while dodging a federal agent named Isabel Lahiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones) who's hot on their trail.

That's the jist of it all. There's also another thief involved nick named the "Night Fox" (Vincent Cassel), but I don't want to ruin that plot point. Overall, without spoiling too much of what goes on this movie moves much slower than the previous film.

There's a lot of little Soderbergh moments here which are reminiscent of his previous films (that yellow tint and overall gritty feel). The movie takes place in Europe and I actually liked the overall feel of it.

The plot just never hits the heights of the previous film with the payoff ultimately being kinda cheap. They don't have the characters represented as evenly in this film either. The reason I liked the first movie so much was not just the plot and pacing, but also the character interactions were great.

This time around it doesn't come in as strong, but just continues off of what was built upon already in the first film meaning I wouldn't recommend watching this unless you've seen the first movie.

Overall, the movie still has a lot of charm and has that "coolness" factor. Yeah the heist isn't as cool, but the plot was fun and I liked the characters that did return (although it would have been nice to get more screen time for certain characters).

It's still a fun film that I would recommend fan of the first movie definitely give a look at.