Dull and disappointing.

Rating: 5/10 (15 September 2006)

Heist movies should be fun and entertaining  not dull and glib. But that's precisely what "Ocean's Twelve" is  a smug, slow exercise in Hollywood banality. You can feel the sweaty palms of fattened executives draining the zest and energy out of this picture. Granted, the first movie wasn't anything great, but it was unassuming and amiable  a bunch of celebrities got together, had a good time, and made a movie that invited the viewer along for the ride. It worked as a slice of distracting summer cinema.
But "Ocean's Twelve" suffers from that complex that a lot of sequels get  you know, the first flick is an unexpected success, and then the studios push for a sequel and completely dominate the production now knowing they have a bona fide lucrative franchise on their hands.
In this case it feels as if the studio execs weren't the only ones to blame. The cast is obnoxiously self-aware  in the first film Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) walked the line between "cool" and "fool" and in "Ocean's Twelve" he comes across as an utterly annoying, wannabe hipster. I don't think Brad Pitt is necessarily to blame, although his delivery of lines doesn't help much. They sound forced and overtly dramatic. It just isn't real enough, even for escapism.
Some of the actors seem to disappear for large amounts of time  Andy Garcia and Bernie Mac must have been called away for another shoot, because they mostly vanish after the first fifteen minutes. In fact, the first fifteen minutes of the film really just exists to give Garcia a role in the movie  except for a brief appearance at the end, it's the only screen time he really gathers.
The new additions seem tacky and unnecessary  likewise the cameos are contrived, and the self-referential Julia Roberts-playing-Tess-playing-Julia-Roberts scene must have looked a lot better on paper.
Soderbergh's direction is harder and laced with grit  the hand-cam shots and filtered bleak cinematography really give the film an abysmal edge that hinders it. The original was vibrant, colorful and alive  "Twelve" is dead from the start.
Not a terrible motion picture by any standard, but then again I'd hardly feel compelled to label this "entertainment." It's a sporadically amusing, mostly grueling sequel that never really rings true  it's like an exclusive in-joke for the cast and crew, and the audience's involvement was obviously of secondary importance during filming.