Worst Film of 2004

Rating: 2/10 (18 April 2005)

First of all, no, I'm not a film snob, and yes, I liked the first one. I love Traffic, I love Out of Sight. This is easily the worst Soderbergh movie ever. Worst Clooney movie ever. Yes, I've seen Return of the Killer Tomatoes. It's worse than Meet Joe Black. Mary Reilly. Volcano. Charlie's Angels 2. Eurotrip. Do you see what I'm getting at?
Before I get flamed on this website for being "too serious" or "looking too deep", let me point out what's wrong with this movie:
It's not funny. It's not exciting. It's not romantic. It's not clever. It's paced slower than molasses. I love Solaris, and that's a Michael Bay movie compared to this thing. It runs on 30 minutes too long. Even the premise of this movie is awful. The bad guy from the first movie wants his money back with interest so everyone agrees to steal again to pay him back?? What?? That's the plot of your movie? In related news, I hear they're going to make another Star Wars sequel where the Empire wants reparations for the damage done to the Death Star, so Han Solo throws up his hands and is like "well, alright, just gimme a week or two". That's a joke, by the way.
Yes, all of Ocean's 11 are back, but they are given literally nothing to do. It's actually a lot like American Pie 2, where the ads are like "everyone's back!" and then maybe 3 of the 12 people actually do anything.
Seriously, no spoilers here, but ask yourself at the end why did anyone even bother to appear, other than to fulfill their contract. How many of the 12 were actually involved in the heist? Entire scenes pass where key characters are missing, with no explanation. It doesn't appear the cast is in the same room with each other, and old-fashioned editing is used to make it seem like they are. Check out the scene on the ship when someone yells something to the camera. Cut to Bernie Mac, standing all by himself, nodding to the camera, as if he's having a conversation and not showing up on the set a month after the other actors have left.
Anything good to say about this movie? The acting's pretty good. Vincent Cassel is great as always, and will probably get lots of work in the U.S. now. (Unfortunately, probably picking up bad-guy roles Lambert "Merovingian" Wilson turns down) Julia Roberts is fantastic in a scene with a surprise actor. (I won't spoil it here). The scene with Matt Damon and Robbie Coltrane is amusing, but mainly b/c the joke is so old and creaky I couldn't believe this passes for humor in a big-budget movie in 2004. (You accidentally said something that translates to an insult about a relative!! That never happens in movies!!)
I saw this in a packed theater. I doubt everyone in the audience was an avant-garde film snob. But people were restless. People were groaning by about the 5th hour of this monstrosity. People were sleeping, for Pete's sake. I started to wonder who exactly "Pete" was, when i should have been paying attention to the movie.
I like most movies, I see. I'm not hard to please. So you know this movie's bad when I say it's the worst movie of 2004. Yes, I've seen Garfield. I've seen The Village. I've seen Fat Albert. I've seen Taxi. I'd rather watch any of those films than sit through this again.