Turgid then clever

Rating: 6/10 (2 June 2005)

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his bad of idiosyncratic thieves are tracked down, one by one, by casino owner Terry Benedict, from whom the Eleven stole $160,000,000. Benedict wants his money back - plus interest - or else. In this milder, innocuous sequel to the 2001 film (itself a remake of the 1960 film), the Eleven-Plus-One must pull off three major robberies in Europe to satisfy Benedict.
It's an intriguing premise, and yet for some reason I thought the idea was that they were going to perform all three capers at the same time, which would have been a neat feat to watch, what with the gang having only eleven members. But alas and alack, that's not how it shook down. What we do get are three separate robbery attempts, each running into greater difficulty than the previous. Kind of like the logistics of getting a whole mess o' Big Stars to rearrange their schedules so they could work on this floppy film at cut-rate prices.
Danny and his boys have their work cut out for them, because they also have a rival - the Night Fox, a wealthy man-about-town who effortlessly steals, steals, steals. Seems he's the best there is, ever was, ever will be, or something like that. And he's one step ahead of Ocean all the time. Don't you just hate people like that? Meanwhile, Linus (Matt Damon) wants a larger role in the planning of heists and such, perhaps as a sidekick/apprentice to Danny and Rusty (Brad Pitt). Why director Steven Soderbergh thought Linus needed more screen time is beyond me; the whole secondary plot of the misfit Linus trying to assert himself seemed a bit out of place - and quite a bit of a stretch for Movie Star Matt Damon.
Which kind of brings me to another slightly annoying aspect of the movie - all the Movie Stars. Sure, I know they all took way-smaller salaries to work on this film, and bravo to them. But you could never get away from the fact that this was a star-studded affair, something a little above Battle of the Network Stars but not quite as good as, say, Chicago. Pitt and Clooney usurp most of the screen time anyway, although Damon and Julia Roberts are a close second. Luckily, there are plenty of other familiar faces: Elliot Gould, Don Cheadle, Carl Reiner, Scott Caan, Casey Affleck ... Oh, and did I mention Catherine Zeta-Jones? She's an intrepid Interpol agent who shares a past with Rusty, and she's hot on the trail of the Ocean Gang. Unfortunately, she's a bit underused, although a late subplot about her works fine, although it seems shoehorned in.
The plot gets a little complicated at times, and you might well ask yourself, "Where are they now? Why are they doing that?" and so forth. I liked the intricacies of the plot of the 2001 film, but for some reason this script left me a little cold. Complex is fine, but the plot still needs to draw you in, and it just didn't do so this time around.
The first half of the movie kind of dragged a bit for me, but I'm glad I stuck with it. In the second half, there are a couple of excellent cameos - both surprises to me - and some clever twists indeed. The action in the latter half of the movie did make up for the torpidity (look it up!) of the first half. Kudos to George Nolfi's script, albeit somewhat grudgingly.
The acting isn't bad at all; in fact, the players all seem to be enjoying themselves immensely, which is kind of what all-star movies are all about.