A waste of man-flesh

Rating: 1/10 (15 June 2007)

We pay eight dollars not to "watch" the movie but to feel like we're in the movie. Through screen writing and cinematography, the audience is supposed to see the world through the eyes of the main character and experience his adventures vicariously. Ocean's Thirteen didn't let us in to Danny Ocean's world. The audience was left out of the jokes--when the Chinese character spoke in Chinese, the other characters would talk back or laugh, but since there were no subtitles, the audience didn't know what he was talking about. We were also left out of the lingo (a Susan B. Anthony) and the plotting of the operation. The entire movie was what Alfred Hitchcock would call a McGuffin.
The final goodbye scene between Danny and Rusty at the airport was a two-shot from a low angle in front, so that rather than being physically in the place of the characters looking at each other (in traditional POV style shots), the audience is in the point of view of Danny's luggage.
And why hire the sexiest man alive to co-star in a movie with the second sexiest man alive if there aren't any female characters, no seduction, no love. The girlfriends back home are mentioned in passing, but we never learn anything about them. Seduction is what makes us care about the characters. We fall in love with them when they fall in love with each other. Ellen Barkin looked fantastic in this movie, but rather than seduce her with some of the available male beauty in the movie, Matt Damon's character wears a hideous rubber nose and requires a chemical agent to attract her.
Ocean's Thirteen was a spectacle not a movie.