The Second Time Around

Rating: 10/10 (30 May 2007)

Now, the trick with a sequel to a remake of a lesser movie is this: how to repeat the magic without making it a bland retread of what's been seen before? Well. It's a truth universally acknowledged that when a film revolves around a heist that goes smoothly even when the victim may eventually retaliate, the only thing its sequel do is go the opposite direction: build momentum around another heist that will redeem our pack of thieves from their state of disgrace and send the story off some odd directions with characters who have their own ulterior motives. If you look closely you can actually feel the noose slowly start tightening itself around Danny Ocean's group. Eccentrics pop in and out, never to be seen again, leaving their own mark -- this is a light ballet gliding towards the moment when everything converges, gets messed up... and to say more would be criminal. You have to experience it on your own. See how one of the most ballsy in-jokes involving a certain Oscar-winning actress from one of Soderbergh's earlier films obliquely leads to the denouement where not one, but two double-climaxes -- one frankly hilarious, fraught with its own little family dysfunction, the other sweetly emotional -- virtually sweep the rug off of you. If that isn't entertainment, I don't know what is.