Ocean's 13 fun, but leaves little suspense

Rating: 6/10 (13 June 2007)

In my preview for Ocean's 13, I said that the movie had all the makings to be more comparable to the 2001 Ocean's film than to the sequel, Ocean's 12. This definitely held true, but the film came nowhere close to being the great heist caper that was Ocean's 11.
The film was separated into two parts: the set-up of the con and the con itself. While the con was every bit as enjoyable as the original movie, the set-up leaves the audience wanting more. The gang's basic goal is to get revenge upon Willie Bank (Al Pacino) who screwed their friend Reuben (Elliott Gould) out of a casino partnership. The con is to basically rig every game in Bank's casino at the same instant so that he is left ruined.
While the con is pretty lame compared to the heist in the first movie, the lead in to the con is even lamer. Essentially, whenever there is a problem throughout the first half of the movie it is either solved by the gang spending a lot of money on something (like the drills used to build the Chunnel which they say cost about $36 million) or one character knowing a guy who could help them out. The end result is that the intricately planned heist in the first film is replaced by a string of bribes to employees at Bank's casino.
Furthermore, many of the members of the crew don't really do much to further the con at all. Clooney, Pitt, and Bernie Mac are around the entire movie, but never really do much of anything. Other characters were doing things, but none were as important to the con as they all were in the original.
Even still, when the gang enacts the con in the second half of the film (with all the people who they paid off), Soderbergh's direction and the cast's superb acting shines through all of the problems I had with the story to make for a really enjoyable finish. When I left the theater, I was incredibly satisfied with the movie because of its second half. Even though the con they were doing was pretty silly, they music, camera shots, and acting all came together with some fantastic dialogue to make a fun finish, simply lacking the suspense that the first movie had.
Where the second movie went wrong (the Julia Roberts scene) this movie succeeded. The actors remained cool throughout the ending, and it made for a very satisfactory experience. Soderbergh's goal was to recreate the Vegas feel that the first movie had, and he definitely succeeded during the sequence when the actual con takes place, leaving the viewer wanting more.
Overall, however, I give the movie 6.5/10 salty stix. With a more compelling con, the movie would have certainly been higher, but it was definitely more enjoyable than the Shrek and Pirates sequels which came before it this summer.
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