Soderbergh makes this movie good, but in the same time tries a bit too much

Rating: 3/10 (18 April 2005)

OCEAN'S ELEVEN is without doubt one of the best remakes ever, and with the awaited sequel everybody expects the same charm, cool and entertainment that we got in the first - after all, the director and actors are all the same! So we have all the reason to have some great expectations going around. Wrapped up with the fabulous cast of the previous and this time Catherine Zeta-Jones ducks up, together with great cameos as Bruce Willis, Robbie Coltrane and Vincent Cassel. Steven Soderbergh making Ocean's Eleven dangerously sexy and cool, have a lot to loose here but in the same time; didn't he simply show that he was a top-notch director back then, and that this guy wouldn't mess such a thing up? Well, Soderbergh struggles and gives an enormous effort to make this movie look as good as it does, and only that makes OCEAN'S TWELVE quickly a very amusing movie to watch. And with all of the beautiful stars the movie leaps off into a very slick entertainment now! Three years after the Las Vegas heist were the eleven cons stole 160,000,000 dollars from casino tycoon Benedict, Danny Ocean and his fab. 10 cons are living peacefully spending their share of the money. Then, one day Terry Benedict shows up, finally hunted them down and wants his money, with interest back. Now, the eleven has to team up again, including a new female member, to start picking up the money all across Europe.
The movie starts off better than anything else, a great watch. As a soaking wet Brad Pitt enters the room and kisses Zeta-Jones laying in the bed, only problem being that he is a thief - and she's a agent hunting on exactly guys like him. As the screen freezes, we see Pitt / Rusty jumping out of the window and OCEAN'S TWELVE kicks off. It's just as entertaining and cool watching, especially with the fantastic letters of A-M-S-T-E-R-D-A-M brilliantly smacks upon us and others. And the still very amusing half telepathic dialogs between Pitt and Clooney fills the between greatly, and so with the Soderbergh director knowledges. As he here makes it all more wild with great hand-held camera jogging around, making a fine support to the whole movie's super stylish image. But there are also targets that this movie misses pity enough - as Vincent Cassel's super-thief "Night-Fox" when he looks simply silly jumping around and between the bad CGI-animated laser-beams, or when Julia Roberts has to pretend as she is, Julia Roberts - well, it's not that charming or funny! And with those effects, the movie has a way of taking everything so very un-serious to the level that it all gets a bit uninteresting. The laughs and amusement are still there, Soderbergh does a good job though he maybe tries a bit too hard here.
OCEAN'S TWELVE is a worthy sequel by all means, but it doesn't have the cool and charming edge of brilliant movie making that the first made so perfectly.