The Real Heist in Ocean's Twelve Occurs when Steven Soderbergh walks off laughing with your Money...

Rating: 2/10 (12 May 2014)

Well, the joke's on him, because I bought a two-film set of Ocean's 11 and 12 together, for 50p. So, technically, he only got 25p off me for this,and I probably did get about 50p worth of enjoyment from "11" - although not a great deal more. It was okay; it was fun and silly, with a cast of a few annoying people, and some decent ones. But anyway; back to this one.
Oh, there must have been tears of laughter rolling down the director's cheeks when he made this movie. It is so jam-packed with self-knowing nudges and winks, and quite frankly, ends up way, way too far up it's own bottom. The actual plot itself is negligible, and seems to ratchet everything up to 101, and then resolve it with some ridiculous contrivance. Even the humour falls flat, what little there is - the Robbie Coltrane jargon scene at the bar especially is an appalling piece of cinematic showing off, and not only isn't funny, or witty, or absurd, is actually embarrassing. In fact, the entire film, is embarrassing.
The main talking point of the film, comes when Tess, played by Julia Roberts, decides to pull off a stupid robbery, by disguising herself...as Julia Roberts. Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha, Ha...No, seriously. That's ridiculous, and not even vaguely clever. Then Bruce Willis turns up,playing himself, proving the rule that every film with Bruce Willis in it, is total rubbish. This is such arrogant, self-important claptrap, that it happily demolishes everything in sight with a brainless, relentless absurdity, which, when the dust finally settles, leaves you with the feeling that someone has, quite sincerely, just robbed you of time and money, and stuck their middle finger in your face for two hours.
I give this movie two out of ten, because I love Brad Pitt, who plays this entire film with a bored, I can't be bothered with life swagger, and does seem rather fed up; Catherine Zeta-Jones, who is usually good fun, and sometimes quite a good actress, and the marvellous Vincent Cassell, star of "La Haine", and "Black Swan", who gets a chance to strut his stuff here with some cool acrobatics, but little else. Because any character development, or decent acting all just gets in the way of this film's overwhelming desire to spit on everything, to outdo itself in stupid gags, and unrealistic plot turns. To be honest,it lacks even the superficial gloss which the first movie had. That had twists in it, sure, but this movie has so many twists, that it doesn't even have a story. It's just an absurd collection of infantile rubbish, held together by three decent actors, that has guaranteed itself future economic success by plonking itself square in the middle of a trilogy, and has come after a fairly decent first movie.
I don't know how to impress upon you strongly enough, but even if you thought the first movie was THE BEST FILM YOU HAVE EVR SEEN IN YOUR ENTIRE LIFE - In which case, you are probably beyond helping anyway, due to your terrible taste in films - but even if this was the case with you PLEASE...I beg of you...do not give Steven Soderbergh the satisfaction he deserves. This is a travesty of film-making, and its smug laziness does not deserve to con more innocents out of their money. So do everyone a favour - if you want a star-studded, comedy/thriller movie...then watch "Hot Fuzz". Or "Charlie's Angels". Or, Heck...watch anything. Just not this movie.
(And, if you're still here after all this ranting...it's worth mentioning that this ain't the worst film I've ever seen in my life. I just feel incredibly cheated right now, and have the urge to convey that feeling to others. I'm sure it'll go away soon enough...But, goodness, has this put me off watching the third one, or what?)