Clever ego-fest deserves more credit

Rating: 8/10 (24 October 2019)

This film is fun. Yes, some of the critics were right in that it revealed WXYZ before revealing STUV. Sure. But the cleverness of Ocean's team's primary opponent stealing the egg before they had a chance to being undone by Ocean's team stealing it before he had a chance to is pretty clever. Undoing a trope by using the same trope...
Everyone hates that a bunch of celebrities did a movie together (judging by the first two reviews I read lmao) but compare this to "This Is The End" and, c'mon, at least this celebrity ego fest is a clever ego-fest!
My favorite part of the movie is when character's lines immediately contradicted themselves. Like Eddie Izzard's "isn't it cliche to have a sexy assistant" line right before his sexy assistant walks on screen. There were 3-4 others in there that I really enjoyed.
Also they set up the Julia Roberts switcharoo quite well by grounding the in-movie universe in our world with Topher Grace playing himself. What's the line - "never show a gun in the first act if you don't plan to use it in the third"? This film amends it to "never show a real celebrity in the first act unless you plan to make Julia Roberts play herself in the third."
Heist films are a popular genre. I like that this one took risks and am ambivalent about Matt, George, Brad, et al getting to hang out and pal around in the process. Who cares...honestly. Enjoyable film.