Overlong, bigheaded, disjointed mess

Rating: 2/10 (26 February 2005)

Ever seen a film with 86 endings? No? Well should the urge ever overcome you, Oceans's Twelve is the only film that refuses to just wrap up the 'plot' for good. There are about a zillion climaxes that are all anti-climatic. Steven Soderbergh couldn't even get one of them right?
Andy Garcia comes back and demands that Ocean's 11 give him back the money they stole, plus extra. So they go off to Europe to steal things by not stealing them and not really planning anything at all. The whole film is made up of narcissistic filler. Ooooohh it's all so sophisticated and cool isn't it? Puh-lease.
This movie shouldn't have been made. Ocean's Eleven may have worked well but Twelve was taken from a non-related script called 'Honor Among Thieves' and adapted into a sequel, that no one asked for. So how do you go about cramming in 12 main characters into a story that did not have 12 main characters? You can't.
As a result Ocean's 12 never interact all at once. Several characters are left with nothing to do, forgotten about, stand about like idiots, fight for even a couple of lines of dialogue (all sarcastic, self-aware, notionally 'cool' dialogue btw), disappear, reappear, wonder what the hell they're doing, forget who they are etc...
It's just plain horrible and too convoluted and contrived for its own good. The whole film seems out of order and you are frequently left wondering what on earth is going on. This elitist, condescending attitude makes us feel like the movie was made for the cast instead of us.
Plus Julia Roberts looks dreadful in this. She's very pale and thin and gaunt-looking. I thought I was looking at Skeletor to begin with. And if you don't believe how sickeningly 'clever' the film thinks it is, a certain plot development has Julia Roberts play Tess Ocean playing Julia Roberts (oh stop, that's too ingenious for my feeble, average movie-goer mind). Somehow Catherine Zeta Jones comes off a prettier, if not a better actress (I do NOT like Catherine Zeta Jones-but she was an exception here when compared to the Plain Jane Julia Roberts) as her accent is still all over the place.
The only good bit about the film is Vincent Cassell in a small supporting role as a master thief (like everyone else in the film). Funny how his one character is more interesting than a dozen others combined. Plus, we actually get to see him do stuff other than stand around. Which helps.
Don't waste your time with this film. Life is too short and there are other, better, shorter movies than this out at the moment. Ocean's Twelve is a dirty dozen.