An Uninspired Remake Of An Uninspired Original

Rating: 3/10 (6 January 2003)

I was not a huge lover of the original version of "Ocean's Eleven," but would still give it the nod over this rather weak and uninspired remake. Basically what makes this the weaker of the two is the cast. In the original, there was the chemistry of the "Rat Pack" to at least keep things interesting. Here, George Clooney et. al. are never able to establish that same rapport and a movie that boasts some big names (Clooney, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, etc.) is never able to convince me that the cast was working as a team.
The same problem that infected the first version is apparent in this as well: the plodding beginning which takes us in great detail through the planning of the casino heist. Here, though, the planning itself leads to questions. To do everything that this bunch did in preparation would have required (it seems to me) a fair bit of seed money. Sure, $160 million is a lot of money, but I found myself wondering at times why they needed it. In any event, the planning of the heist is not exactly spell-binding. This version goes into far more detail about the heist itself than did the original, but it loses points for its ending, which was quite weak compared to the "Rat Pack" version.
Since I wasn't a fan of the original I wasn't really expecting much, and that's exactly what I got: not much!
3/10.