Bunch of random set pieces with incoherent story arc tying them all together. Definitely suffers from sequel-itis.
There are moments where "Ocean's Twelve" is even slicker and wittier than "Ocean's Eleven", but as a whole film, it's a bit too unbalanced in its pacing and way too messy in its plot. Suspension of disbelief is mandatory in this kind of film, but this time they definitely went a bit too far. It's like they purposely made it confusing to the point that you are forced to accept things as they are without questioning. There are the mandatory twists and reveals to change your perception of the events, but the payoff is minimum as you are never any hints on what is going on.
"Ocean's Eleven" was more of an ensemble piece, with each gang member having his own little role in the plan. This time the focus is only on the main actors, with more than half of the team left hanging there with no reason to exist. It would have worked better if they didn't try to include all characters from the previous film at all costs.
Overall, it's a rather fun film with a good cast, but while the plot tries to be as convoluted as possible, the most straightforward and relaxed bits end up being the most entertaining. The unpopular meta-joke that sees Julia Roberts' character pretending to be Julia Roberts might have been a lame idea, but honestly, I thought Bruce Willis' cameo made it unexpectedly fun to watch (I keep saying he is born to do comedies).
The viewer during this film is as confused as Matt Damon's character throughout this film as this film is probably the most confusing film of all time and giving it a 6/10 is being kind because the cast is still great.
Everyone still acts perfectly in this film and the directing is still good. But this film was not fun at all and I found myself with a really bad headache trying to understand what is actually going on. I will say the addition of Vincent Cassel (François Toulour) was pretty cool as the competing heister in the Ocean's movie, but even that plot got so confusing as the film is so muddled its frustrating.
Skip it and just watch Eleven or Thirteen, because this is by far one of the worst sequels I have ever seen.
Also, I need to get this off my chest......Catherine Zeta Jone (Isabel Lahiri) is awful in this film and I am so happy they didn't keep that character in the sequel.
The Good:
The Bad:
Verdict:
Rather than improving on the first film, Ocean’s 12 takes a huge step backwards and presents audiences with a boring, messy and uncompelling heist that doesn’t make any sense at all.
La película es entretenida, pero qué manera de violarse el guión. Le doy siete corazones porque JULIA ROBERTS Y BRUCE WILLIS. JAJAJAJAJAJA.
Ocean's Eleven's sequel didn't have the same spark I thought that its predecessor had. The cast and acting are still amazing and some of the wit and smarts shows, but the story line wasn't as interesting to me this time around which made it less fun to watch compared to the other two films in the trilogy. Ocean's Twelve is still an entertaining film to watch through and through but it's my least favorite of the trilogy and a film I usually skip sometimes if I want to watch Ocean's Eleven and Ocean's Thirteen.
Ocean's Eleven is way much better
and I actually liked the detective lady
I hated hated this movie in 2004, but I've come around to love it since. Julia Roberts playing herself? "Too self-referential for its own good!" Linus blurting out the lyrics to Kashmir in the infamous Lost in Translation scene
Linus blurting out the lyrics of Kashmir in the "Lost in Translation" scene, with Danny and Rusty overselling how offensive that was to Matsui slays me every time. Rest in peace, Robbie :(
While not as good as the original, it is still a decent heist film with a rock solid cast!
Rating: 3/5 - 7.5/10 - Worth Watching
Not as easy to follow as Ocean’s Eleven in my opinion, making it less enjoyable. The reveal of how the heist actually went down was rather disappointing and felt very disconnected from the rest of the film. Nothing felt remotely ‘grand’ about it, unlike the heist of the first film.
Julia Roberts playing someone pretending to be Julia Roberts though, now that was entertaining and unconventional.
It's a bit of a sequel, not having much to add itself
It's not as fun or interesting as the first but has a few great moments.
Style? Great
Dialogues? Fine.
Heist(s)? Mediocre.
Cast?Great.
Story? Waaaay to Confussing.
Some of the part2-ingredients taste good, but Part 1 is (much) better.
I can almost imagine the meeting where they knew they had to come up with a sequel...
"The heist has to be better than the first."
"We need an extra member of the team."
"We can't use Vegas again but Clooney lives in Italy now right?"
And here's the result of a sequel by numbers. It's a crappy mess with all the people from the first being given more to do.
It tries to be clever and comes across as, at best, stupid and at worst, arrogant.
And the big plot spoiler of sorts... Whoever made the decision to have "Julia Roberts playing Tess being Julia Roberts" be a usable plot point needs to never work in Hollywood again. For all those other actors not to look like their famous "counterparts" ... Don't get me started.
Some nice cinematography by Soderbergh at times.
Not a patch on the first film though. Watch it only because 13 is worth the effort.
6.5/10
It’s entertaining, but also a big mess.
And not just in terms of writing & the poorly structured plot, but also in the ugly way it was filmed.
4/10
Not a patch on the first film. The Julia Roberts playing Julia Roberts was cringe inducing bullsh+t. One for those that like celebrities over substance.
I would say that it was not as good as the original but I dont think I have ever seen a sequel that was.
A truly pathetic film, Ocean's Twelve tries to get by on charisma alone...and fails. It's pretty clear from the start that there's no story, and that it's just being made up as it goes along; to the point where Julia Roberts's character ends up impersonating Julia Roberts (which is beyond stupid). And, the characters have been rewritten and changed to fit this idiotic story. Additionally, there's no intrigue or suspense to the heists. The actors still have some good chemistry, but that's about all that the film has going for it. Ocean's Twelve is a lackluster sequel that no one seems to be putting much effort into.
I really wanted to like this movie, since I loved the first one, but I just can't. I didn't have high expectations since it's very rare for sequels to be as good as the first movie but it's worse than I thought it would be. There are way too many things happening at once, so much information that it becomes confusing. It's one of those movies that you only fully get after a rewatch or two. It's 2 hours long but I feel like it only gets interesting in the last 15 minutes. I was gonna give it a 5 but decided on a 6 fully because of the Bruce + Julia scenes.
Do me a favor. Imagine you're tasked with coming up with a sequel - for any movie. What do you think is the first thing you need to do? You need to discover the "soul" of the original film and use it as the foundation for the sequel. In the case of Ocean's Eleven, you're talking about a heist. Then, you'd look at tone. There's a lot of cool, smooth, cleverness going on with a hint of comedy that blends in very well with everything else to make one well-oiled machine. But that's not what the writers of Ocean's Twelve did.
They made a fatal mistake with the foundation of the film. Instead of being primarily about a smart and clever heist, it's about the actors having a good time together. That focus single-handedly got rid of a main heist, transitioning the film into something aimless and convoluted and turned an originally colorful group of characters into a saturated mess that all blend together and no longer play an independent role in the outcome of the film
Furthermore, the type of comedy went from smooth and subtle to over-the-top and even slapstick, which went into some weird and random sound editing issues, like a scene in the beginning where Don Cheadle's character is complaining about them bleeping out curse words in a song while the movie was using phone rings to bleep out cussing in the same scene. It makes no sense with the rest of the movie, only that random scene, and the ringtone was synced with the use of swearing, it was inconsistently patterned so it wasn't even a clever use of swearing either. It is so....bad.
I could go on and on...I just don't get it.
I still don't get the scene with Robbie Coltrane and the haikus or whatever that was. It just doesn't make any sense! :person_shrugging: Yeah, I know, 90 minutes later in the movie they actually explain they were just messing with Linus. Haha real funny, a 90 minutes long joke! :unamused:
Also, much worse movie than the first Ocean's. As others have pointed out, most of the "action" is shown after it happened, which isn't a great way to tell a story, unless your only intention is to twist the plot and you don't know how to do it properly :smirk:. And the script is full of holes:
The detective finds a dent in the wall... and immediately knows that it's from a crossbow shot (because she's super duper smart), and that the house has been lifted, otherwise the shot would have been impossible. Riiiight... the house across the street, from where they shoot, was only 2 inches too high. And she didn't need to check from there, or measure the houses, not even look through the window. She just knew!
Also, instead of lifting the freaking house (by the way: underwater foundations? It's Amsterdam, not Venice!)... wouldn't it have been easier to remove a couple of bricks from the wall across the street? Make it 2 inches shorter, and you get the same result :person_facepalming:.
This one is actually inherited from Ocean's eleven: everybody understands Chinese?! Even the two moron brothers?
Where the fork did Saul come from!? They called in Tess when they needed more people, sure. And Saul had remorses and whatnot. But still, where did he come from? When did he arrive? When did they tell him "hey, we are in this hotel and this is our plan, you better hurry up because we might need you to pose as a doctor"? :thinking:
And the big one. Plot twist!!! They stole the egg at the very begining and everything else was just for show! How clever, how brilliant! I bet nobody saw that one coming (at the restaurant, when she didn't answer...). Except it doesn't make any sense at all. Why go with all that trouble? Bring in Tess, everybody arrested, then everybody rescued by Linus' mother... only to tease the Fox? Well, and as an incredibly convoluted plan to reunite the detective with her not-so-dead father, which by the way, happens to be LeMarc, the greatest thief ever... and the Fox's mentor. I mean... come on!!!
And what's with hidding Albert Finney's face right until the end? We know he's LeMarc, we just don't know who's the actor portraying him. Big deal! It would totally destroy the plot of the movie if he was Michael Caine, right? :rolling_eyes:
What a waste of this cast.
Ocean's 11 was great, this movie is a boring piece of crap
I had very high hopes from this movie being the sequel of Oceans 11. But as almost everyone seems to point out, this movie did make the impact everyone expected. There are several reasons but the primary being the viewer is only made aware of the action after the fact and for only few seconds or minutes. Anyone interested in this series should skip this movie without doubt.
I really like the twists in this movie!
Shout by DeletedBlockedParentSpoilers2013-11-18T11:15:01Z
Really don't get this movie. Viewer is never in on the act. Ocean's Eleven >> Ocean's Twelve.