Funny, stylish, brilliant!

Rating: 10/10 (31 December 2004)

It was just a question of time until Steven Soderbergh directed the next chapter of his 2001 remake of "Ocean's Eleven". Instead of adding another "let's get quickly into the next casino or bank" story like Rififi, Topkapi, Mission Impossible and, of course, Ocean's Eleven (old and new), Soderbergh's film rather pays tribute to Norman Jewison stylish luxury crime comedy "The Thomas Crown Affair" (1968), that was rather focusing on flashbacks, split screen action and a stylish surrounding instead of an extended plot.
The story itself is not that important for the movie, but instead the film is battered with great scenes, witty dialogues, funny encounters, stylish settings, creative editing and camera ankles (check out the great sideway shot of an incoming airplane). The pacing is fast, and if you get lost within the sometimes illogical storyline you won't miss it, as there is always much going on here.
The main actors Clooney, Damon, Pitt and Co. have much funny playing their roles, and even the rather boring and dull Julia Roberts has one really great scene when her character Tess is pretending to be.. guess... Julia Roberts in a hotel and museum scene. Bruce Willis (who has turned down Andy Garcia's role as casino owner in the first part) has a nice cameo in that scene, playing himself. Really funny! The supporting actors are also well-chosen. Catherine Zeta-Jones, playing a successful Europole inspector with leather coat, high heels and sexy hairstyle, is always bright and elegant. European actors Robbie Coltrane and Jerome Krabbe have also witty supporting appearances, and another big highlight is French actor Vincent Cassel, playing the elegant and arrogant master thief Night Fox (check out his great "laser beam dance" in the museum robbery!).
The settings of Amsterdam, Paris, Rome and the Lake Come in Italy are also well-chosen and add weight to Danny Ocean's stylish gang. Pay attention to the score, too - David Holmes, who also provided the scores for Ocean's Eleven and Out Of Sight, has composed the definite "sixties retro easy listening lounge sound track" - just like an acid version of Ennio Morricone or Lalo Schifrin in 1969... great stuff and very original so that you don't realize when some of the older compositions of John Schroeder, Piero Umiliani or Roland Vincent can be heard in between!
Enough for now, Ocean's Twelve is big fun to watch and one of my cinema highlights of 2004! I just wonder why it got so many bad reviews in the U.S.A. while the critics and audiences in Europe were much more positive and even enthusiastic about the film. Maybe they are more familiar with the settings, the style and the way of film making that Soderbergh chose for Ocean's Twelve... It's not just another conventional gangster movie rip-off, but a class of its own. I can't get enough of that... thank you, Mr Soderbergh!