Movie Review: Ocean's Twelve

Went to see this film yesterday. I watched Ocean's eleven on DVD last week so it was still fresh in my mind so I could appreciate the sequel.

As a stand-a-lone movie it would have been ok, but it was definitely a disappointment after the original. All of the original cast returned (at least I think they did - not too sure about the guys in the original film who drove the van and did the mechanical stuff - there were some guys in the movie that were supposed to be them, but they looked different - although I didn't really pay that much attention to them in the first movie anyway - so I cannot be sure.

Joining the cast is Catherine Zeta Jones - playing an english detective working in Rome. She was the former flame of Brad Pitt's character who split on her when he realised how close she was becoming to solving a heist that he was involved with. I read another review of this movie today which referred to him as "walking clothes horse". He certainly got to wear all the posh clothes and wouldn't have looked out of place on the cover of GQ for most of the movie. Brad Pitt's character basically carried the movie - don't know what they did with George Clooney's character, as the leader in the first movie he was the prime character, but he seemed to not get many scenes in this one - it all seemed to focus on Mr Pitt. Not that I'm complaining about this as I'm a big Pitt fan. One thing I didn't like though, they got away from the quirky thing in the original movie with him eating in every scene - I missed that!

Then of course we come to Julia Roberts.... well I had heard that she was ill in real life for some of the filming of this movie because she is pregnant in real life - but well she really looked haggared. They did a really quirky thing and got Tess Ocean to play Julia Roberts so that they could get into the museum and steal the faberge egg even stuffing a cushion up her stomach to mimick the real-life pregnant roberts. I think that was going a bit far - even Bruce Willis got a look in - playing himself again of course. It was quite bizarre.

Andy Garcia's character lost most of his menace. I mean - he's supposed to be such a bad arse businessman and when he catches them all he does is ask them all for the money back - plus interest???

One character who was quite interesting was the french thief played by Lambert Wilson who was the Merovingian in The Matrix Reloaded. I love that dance/karate thing he did to get past the laser grid - not to mention he's as sexy as hell. Just what is it with the french accent?

The plot was just weak compared to the original story, the same plot twists were there, and deceptions within deceptions that were in the first movie but it just seemed lacking somehow. I think the funniest bit of the movie is when the little Chinese guy goes into the sports bag to escape with Pitt and Clooney and then the bag gets lost and stuck on a bus of sports fans. Damn Baggage handlers!!!