Soderbergh's slumming

Rating: 4/10 (20 December 2004)

About 80 minutes into "Ocean's Twelve," there's a rather clever joke involving Tess. If you pay attention, you'll realize it's set up much earlier in a quick conversation between two characters. Even though you know it's coming, the joke's pretty funny. And it's made funnier by the novel use of a cameo appearance. This is not just a cameo for cameo's sake, but actually using a person to play with the plot. A nice touch, it is.
Unfortunately, that's about as interesting as director Steven Soderbergh's dull film gets. Reuniting the cast from the original remake, "Ocean's Eleven" (2001), this one finds Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his band of thieves running to Europe to pull of heists to pay off Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), the hotelier they ripped off in the first film.
Trouble is if Terry didn't intimidate them the first time, why would they really get worried this time around? Ah, but that's thinking too much about this fluffy, airy film that simply tries to float on occasionally amusing riffs and star power. And why not? Consider the stars. Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Elliott Gould, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Vincent Cassel.
The last two are new this time. Zeta-Jones shows up as Isabel, a Euro cop and former lover of Pitt's character. And Cassel gets thrown in to the mix as French master burglar François Tourlour, who challenges Danny to a contest to see who the better thief is. Yes, that's actually a subplot in this film; one of a few superfluous subplots, including one about Isabel's father.
One wonders why Isabel is in this movie at all. Talk about adding a character simply so it can be played by a movie star. Too bad, the star happens to be untalented. Sorry, pretty she might be. But Zeta-Jones quite possibly is the most over-rated actress working today. Sure, she may have won an Oscar for "Chicago," but clearly any of the other nominees - Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep, Queen Latifah or Kathy Bates - actually deserved it that year.
Zeta-Jones couldn't generate sparks with rocks if she rubbed them ceaselessly for hours. What passes for chemistry between Zeta-Jones and Pitt is laughable. She has one expression and she sticks to it.
Since the story's set in Europe, Soderbergh apparently felt the need to give his film a European feel. In fact, the music and camera work gave me the impression Soderbergh was trying to emulate or, at least, pay homage to the films of the French New Wave.
Problem is, Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol and others had no qualms about something bad happening to their protagonists. But "Ocean's Twelve" is pure Hollywood flash. And with this kind of star power, do you really wonder whether any of these characters would be sacrificed? With none of them under any real threat and the ending a foregone conclusion, all you're left is with actors trying to look and sound cool and charming. But George Nolfi's script - initially written for John Woo and then reworked for this sequel - thinks it's smart, when it isn't.
Occasionally, the film wins a chuckle. But there's nothing genuinely exciting or even vaguely suspenseful about this story. In Soderbergh's breezy, but fun, "Ocean's Eleven," the dialogue crackled, characters made us laugh and the story had some grit. Not even the bumbling Malloy brothers can save the sequel. We can only hope that Danny Ocean and his crew will not find the need for another outing.