OCEAN'S TWELVE

Director: Steven Soderbergh (Traffic, Out of Sight, Sex Lies and Videotape, Ocean's Eleven)
Starring: Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Catherine Zeta Jones, Matt Damon, Julia Roberts, more

Sequels generally suck for 2 main reasons. First only good movies get sequels made, so in comparison the sequal is unlikely to be as good. Such was Ocean's Eleven and Twelve, a good movie and a less good movie. There's no doubt that it's very difficult to make a good movie in the first place. There's a chemistry that often exists between actors, and character, and production teams that can't easily be reproduced. To a degree, such is Ocean's Twelve. There is still obvious chemistry between the actors, but the lack of interesting moments in this film kill any potential chemistry between the characters. Second, sequels often suck because movie-makers always seem to think that there has to be more in the sequel than in the original. More explosions, more passion, more eye-candy, more blah, blah, blah. This is almost always wrong. Trying to provide more in one area usually ends up taking away from another area and turning the movie into much, much less. Unfortunately, a sequel also suffers from a perception problem by the audience. If it's not better than the original, or at least quite nearly as good, it will seem much worse by comparison.

This film is not as good as the original. As such, it occasionally even seems to be much worse. The story does suffer a bit from trying to do more than Ocean's Eleven, but mostly it's just not as interesting a script in the details. Lost is much of the simple interactions between the characters which is what made the first film so entertaining - the witty reparte if you will. Nonetheless, if the film is taken on its own, there is still much to like.

Standouts: Hard to argue with the movie stars assembled. You can't not like these guys.
Blowouts: The script had its moments, but it also had a wipeout or two.

Grade: B+