Reasonably entertaining but the messy plot and lack of cohesion really suck the fizz out of it  even if the stars appear to be really enjoying it

Rating: Null/10 (13 February 2005)

Several years on from their job in Las Vegas and Danny Ocean's crew have been sold out to Terry Benedict, who has visited each of them to give them two weeks to pay back the money they stole, with interest. Too hot to work in America, the crew head to Europe to pull off a series of jobs to earn the money but find themselves outsmarted by another "master" thief who is willing to pay off their debt if Ocean will indulge him in a challenge to see who is the best thief. So, with Benedict and Interpol Detective Isabel Lahiri breathing down their necks, the crew come together to pull off the job.
With the remake of Ocean's Eleven, things seemed to move so quickly with such flair and style that substance didn't matter that much and it managed to pull off the trick and come across as fluffy fun. The sequel clearly tries to pull off the same trick but it cannot manage it and, although it has some fun moments, it ends up being pretty messy, lacking slick pace and failing to really please the audience in the way that its predecessor did. The plot feels like it has been forced and it cannot cope with the messy detail nor move fast enough to distract us from it; whole sections make little sense and, when the final twist comes you will struggle not to feel betrayed by how you have spent the hour before. Instead of a nice narrative flow the film is more like a series of set pieces  few of these really work that well and some of them fall quite flat. Even when they worked I couldn't shake the feeling that the cast were enjoying it more than us; certainly this appeared to be the case with the whole "look-a-likey" collection of in-jokes and several of the other scenes.
The cast are enjoying themselves but that doesn't mean that the film uses them well at all. Clooney and Pitt are good because they have plenty of screen time and ooze cool for the majority of the film. Damon cuts his way into the screen time with a nice line of joking about "coming up" but Roberts and Jones are really pushed to the edges of the film even if they do have some things to contribute. Affleck, Caan, Garcia, Qin, Mac, Cheadle, Reiner, Gould and Coltrane are all pretty wasted and are often just pushed out of the story for the sake of convenience (Mac and Qin are two very good examples). Willis is actually quite amusing, Cassel is not that bad and Izzard is pretty good in a minor role.
Overall though the film is never better than average; reasonably entertaining at best. The plot is all over the place and cannot even distract the audience enough so that the holes are hidden until the end; as it is the second half of the film is a shambles and I couldn't help but be annoyed by it  hell, it doesn't even have the gloss, shine and flair of the first film. The cast appear to have enjoyed themselves but many of them have next to nothing to do and it all just feels a bit too cluttered for most of the time. The first vehicle was fun and slick; this one tries to keep up but stalls way too many times.