Ocean's Twelve (2004) Reviews

• When egos meet

  andrewwastie2004-12-22

  George : Hey guys, remember that movie we all did a few years back called Ocean's Eleven? Brad : Course we do, we had such a great time. Julia : And let's not forget we made stacks of money on it. It was a hit! George : Well here's an idea….Let's make a sequel! Matt : Fantastic idea! I mean the first one had all of us in it but most of all it was directed, had cool music, had lots of us in it and had a great script. Brad : The script? Oh yeah, the script, whatever. Julia : Let's do it. Everyone will love seeing us mugging it up on the screen. Steven Soderbergh's a friend of mine so he'll love directing us again. George : Yeah, he'll do it. He won't have to work too hard though because it's got us in it. In fact he can just stuff around and experiment with all sorts of stupid camera angles. Matt : Won't that just confuse the audience and make them dizzy? George : Stuff that! Just so long as everyone can make out it's us up there on the screen they'll love it! Matt : And the music?? Brad : Pfft! Music? No one goes to the movies for music. They want to see stars. Like us! Let's just have any old stupid music for this one. Matt : That's fine. What about the script? Brad : What is it with you and the script? Hey here's an idea. Julia, you're so famous and wonderful… Julia : So are you Brad. Brad : Thanks Julia. What I was saying was how about we have an entire sequence where your character pretends to be you! Everyone knows you're fantastic so they'll love it! Matt : Great idea Brad. How do we fit that into the script? George : Who cares??? It's Julia! Everyone will love it! Julia : OK. How about we get someone else as famous and wonderful as us to join in the cast? The audience will love that. George : Yeah, let's get Bruce Willis in a pointless uncredited cameo. He's never been too fussy about what movies he's made before. He's bound to say yes. Matt : How do we fit him into the script? George : Who cares??? It's Bruce Willis. Everyone will love it! Julia : OK, who else? Brad : I'm way ahead of you here, Julia. I've got a famous wife so let's get someone who is famous and wonderful, with a famous husband and who they audience will love if they see her and I having a romantic scene. All : Catherine Zeta Jones! George : I'll call her and see. (Ring Ring) Catherine : Hello. George : Hi Catherine, George Clooney here. You might remember working with me in Intolerable Cruelty…the audience loved it! Catherine : Hi George. What's up? George : We're making a sequel to Ocean's Eleven. It's got me and Brad and Julia and Matt in it. How'd you like to be in it too? Catherine : Yeah sure. What's it about? George : Who cares?? It's got me and Brad and Julia and Matt and you in it!! Catherine : OK. But how about we film it in Europe? The audience will love that! George : It's a deal. See ya. Catherine : Bye Julia : So how'd it go? George : She's in AND she had a great idea. She reckons we could film it somewhere in Europe. Brad : Fantastic! Matt : So how does that fit into the script? Julia : Who cares about the script!! It's got us in it! And anyone who liked Ocean's Eleven will get sucked into seeing it and by then it's too late for them to worry about the script because they've already paid their money. George : And besides they'll love it because it's got me and Julia and Matt and Brad AND Catherine in it AND it will be filmed in Europe. Everyone will love it! Matt : Great. Let's do it!! ……you get the idea.

• Even Sinatra would have said 'no'.

  mungo392005-06-01

  Unfortunately I think this is one of those films that if you or I took it to the studio and said, 'can I make this great movie with my friends Mary, Mungo and Midge from school?' the studio would have you kicked to death on the spot. However, if a bunch of massive Hollywood names say, 'look, I fancy a jaunt to Italy with my mates, how about it?' the studio writes a cheque. We kick off with the casino boss from Ocean's 11 tracking down the robbers who made off with his cash, and then Brad Pitt is shagging Catherine Zeta Jones, and then there's some monkeying about in Amsterdam and Italy and such and such and then it all ends somehow. The film does, however, include the most shameful moment of both Julia Roberts' and Bruce Willis' careers, which is a cinematic gem. I nearly vomited in my lap and tore my eyes out when Julia Roberts, playing Tess in the movie, pretends to be (you guessed it) Julia Roberts! Bruce Willis stands about clearly wondering when he can leave, and how much the cheque will be. Ah well, to be fair, I'd have done it for the cash, so I suppose I can't really criticize the poor loves, but I'm a penniless slob not a Hollywood legend. I guess what really annoys me about this film is not that it is boring and pointless and has a terrible story, but that I think the actors probably all had good fun doing it! I think the actor's entire job is to project emotion outwards...I feel like I paid to go to the party, but had to stand outside in the rain. Booo! Watch it if you like Como, or fancy CZJ or something, but otherwise go for a walk.

• Huh?

  goodale692004-12-13

  Great actors, beautiful European scenery, funny lines, witty banter, nice camera work, what could go wrong? ... The plot. When I saw that 27% of the people gave this movie a 10 rating, I wondered if I was the slow one. Then I read the reviews. When most of the stars started appearing on talk shows, trying to convey the buddy buddy tomfoolery that went on behind the scenes, I kind of sensed that damage control was underway. There was a moment in this movie where a few of the actors were sitting at a table talking complete gibberish, and it was later joked that they pulled a "lost in translation". I guess the joke was on me the viewer. What rolled along as a pretty good movie slowly gathering steam, stalled into chaotic incomprehensive mess. If you loved the first movie because it developed into a brilliantly masterminded theft with many twists, you be left with the empty feeling that the only thing that was lifted in this movie; was your money for the admission ticket. It is too late for me now, but you still have a chance.

• I'd might expect this crap from this cast...but from Soderbergh?

  crliston12004-12-12

  Every James Bond movie has its own set of rules. Just like every Indiana Jones movie has ITS own set of rules. And the fact that screenwriters don't break these rules maintains the integrity of the characters. With a completely unnecessary plot twist, the integrity of both Ocean films plummets somewhere between Airplane 2 and a Roadrunner cartoon. Imagine what would happen, while teetering on the rope bridge outside of the Temple of Doom, if Indy told Shorty and Willie not to worry because throughout the entire first two movies he's secretly had super powers and can fly them both to safety. Entertaining? Sure, for a Roadrunner cartoon. But Spielberg would never have done that because it would have destroyed the integrity of the film. More importantly, it would have ANGERED the audience. They'd already sat on the edge of their seats through 3 hours worth of Indiana Jones movies and they were counting on Indiana to get them off that bridge in a believable way. If he were to fly off? People would have walked out of the theaters the same way people did during Ocean's 12. SPOILERS 1. Julia Roberts'character, Tess, infiltrates a museum by disguising herself as...Julia Roberts?!? A clever twist? By breaking the fourth wall three hours after we've been introduced to these characters? Is this the Naked Gun 33 and 1/3? It's a textbook example of how a cheap laugh can ruin an entire film. But wait...just in case you haven't walked out yet... 2. The suspense builds throughout the last hour of the movie -- how will they pull off the heist -- there are only 10...8...5...2 DAYS LEFT! And then in the last 12 minutes of the film, the ONLY entertaining part of this movie, we see that the heist was made days earlier and took Matt Damon all of 30 seconds to pull off. The past 10 days? A complete waste of your time. BACK TO INDIANA JONES ON THE ROPE BRIDGE..."Just relax, Willie! I stole the REAL stones back about a month ago! Besides, I convinced them you were Kate Capshaw!" If you haven't already seen it, cut your losses and go see the Polar Express. I don't want to ruin the ending for you, but there really is a Santa Claus. Most importantly, you won't feel cheated leaving the theater.

• The Ultimate Heist Movie-- *I* was Robbed!

  katmarsen2004-12-11

  SPOILER!! Terrible camera work, horrible writing, non-existent plot, and numerous plot wholes. Wonderful acting! Except for Julia Roberts. Who poorly plays someone who is impersonating Julia Roberts, poorly. Catherine Zeta Jones is adorable in this movie. During the movie, we repeatedly zoom in, on each of the twelve (!) characters. Twelve is too many, even for a classic like 12 Angry Men. And the problem is, we tediously zoom in on the characters, when all of them are in the same room, doing the same thing. Yep, Clooney's eating. Yep, Pitt's eating. Yep, the "Jew" is eating. Yep, the geek is eating. Yep, the bodybuilder's eating. Yep, Mr. Sensitive is eating. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep--Yep. Yep. Phew! This happens at least three other times in the movie. Yep, they're all sitting in cars, bored. Yep, they're all getting arrested, frightened. Yep, they're all being led out of a jail, depressed. But it wasn't until I was home that I realized how badly they'd "got" me on this one. This is a heist movie, right? That's what I went to see, right? But when I walked in and set my car keys in the change jar, only then I realized: NOTHING WAS ACTUALLY STOLEN IN THIS MOVIE! That's right. It's a heist movie, where nothing gets stolen. Oh, they try. They go to try and steal some boring document or something, from some guy's house (whatever), and it turns out it's already been stolen. 20 minutes of my life, wasted. Then they try to steal some egg from some museum (YAWN!), and they screw that up and get arrested. Then we see how some fairy french guy stole the egg even before they did, and we get all the joy of "Entrapment", except this time the person inside the tight catsuit dancing around the fake lasers is... an ugly skinny french guy. Um. But it turns out he didn't actually steal the egg either. Actually, our heroes stole the egg, LOOOONG ago, in another movie entirely, which would have been a GREAT movie to watch, had they made that movie. Instead we see a 30 second clip in black-and-white about how they robbed some college student of his back-pack. You heard me... the daring caper, the ultimate heist-- the buildup of this 2 and a half hours of utter boring crap-- is them stealing a back-pack from a college student, by creatively getting into a fight over baseball teams and distracting him, and replacing his back-pack with an identical back-pack? What?? Ugh. I'm telling you, this was so bad, I didn't even realize just how bad it was-- just how badly I'd been robbed-- until I got home.