Don't Bother - Plot less, Mindless and Pointless

Rating: 1/10 (22 April 2006)

Big mistake making this film. Amazed the actors signed up to it. Pay checks and who's who 'A' list credits must have been the catalyst.
The first half hour is a mixture of confusing snippets of different timelines and "guess who's back?" shots. Add to this the whispering dialogue, so you can hardly hear the actors, and you have little idea what on earth the plot is supposed to be.
This film is really a plot within a plot within a plot. The half hour prior to the last fifteen minutes moves faster than the rest of the film, but it's completely pointless.
In it we're shown that the remaining 'free' members of the crew decide to enlist Tess (Julia Roberts) to assist them in the heist. Here's the clanger...they come to the conclusion that Tess looks very similar to...wait for it....Julia Roberts!!! Now there's a script with originality and imagination for you. They also get Bruce Willis in a cameo role to make it more likely that the character played by Julia Roberts is really Julia Roberts. Willis seems bemused by the whole thing. Julia Roberts manages to play herself well enough (!) Clanger No.2 comes at the end. We're shown that the target of the heist (a Faberge Egg) was actually 'pinched' by Ocean's crew earlier on. It's the twist to make the audience say "I didn't see that coming.", and it's an insult to the audience.
Basically we're to believe that with the loot already in their possession, they enlist Julia Roberts to go through a pointless act to attempt to steal the fake one, so they can be locked up, only to then be rescued by associates. All so they can A) Get away with it all, and B) Have the right to boast to another top-class thief The other underlying plot issue is that they have to pay back the cash from the 1st movie. This is the basis for all this happening.
Let's face it. In the real world, or even in a fictional fantasy world of crooks, they don't waste their time on one-upmanship when that kind of loot is at stake. Not do they bother to get caught to get busted out. Ludicrous! It's a who's who of the first film, and even the knuckle-dragging ape from the first movie is there, tattoos and all....but wait for it....he appears in a suit and touting a 'legal council' badge he busts one of the crew out of jail (legally I assume). Yes, like most lawyers have tattoos on their shaven heads and are 7 foot tall.
Plus points? Matt Damon and Catherine Zeta-Jones seem to take their parts seriously enough to be entertaining. The rest are getting an even share of quips, gags, and smart-arsed comments. Few of them get a decent share of the dialogue or the filming to make an impact.
The style, music and what not are good, but there's too much reliance on that to fill in the gaps.
I think the original rat-pack and the original Ocean's 11 became a classic for a few reasons, but one was because then didn't try to do a sequel. The re-make of Ocean's 11 was quite good, simply because with the exception of the location and the target(s), the plot was completely different. They had a real chance to make it a classic, and the corporate idiots of the film industry preferred to cash in on it instead.
Result? If there's ever another sequel it'll flop right out. Few will spend their cash one more time.
1/5 - and it's Matt Damon and Catherine Zeta-Jones who get the 1.