Ocean's Twelve

Rating: 3/10 (10 January 2012)

From director Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies, and Videotape, Out of Sight, Eric Brockovich, Traffic), the first film was a great fast paced remake with an all star cast, I was wondering if this sequel would be just as good, despite being rated two stars out of five. Basically it has been three years since Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his team of ten cohort expert thieves stole $160 million from ruthless Las Vegas casino owner Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), and this money has been split between the crew, but they are not free of the crime yet, as the man they stole from wants it all back. Benedict tells him they have two weeks to get all the money they stole back, and with Danny bringing back Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt) and Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon) to get the ball rolling, they know they cannot risk a job in the U.S., so they travel to Europe. Specifically they head for Amswetrdam, and after searching for the most valuable job they are given the task to steal the priceless Coronation Egg that is going on display. So all the original team are brought back, Basher Tarr (Don Cheadle), Frank Catton (Bernie Mac), Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould), Virgil Malloy (Casey Affleck), Turk Malloy (Scott Caan), Livingston Dell (Eddie Jemison) and 'The Amazing' Yen (Shaobo Qin). Saul Bloom (Carl Reiner) says no to the job, but he possibly does a little something, so they are joined instead by Danny's wife Tess (Julia Roberts), who uses her striking resemblance to actress Julia Roberts (yes, they really do that) to help out. The job is made a little difficult though because Europol Detective Isabel Lahiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is hanging around, she once had a a relationship with Rusty, and also there is a a thief stealing things at the same time called 'The Night Fox', later revealed as Baron François Toulour (Black Swan's Vincent Cassel). It comes to the robbery, and they do manage to steal the valuable egg, with the help of some hologram technology, as well as distraction and stalling towards the security, they pay back promising Benedict no more heists in Las Vegas, Danny gets his debt from Toulour back, and Rusty and Isabel rekindle their relationship. Also starring Albert Finney as Gaspar LeMarque, Eddie Izzard as Roman Nagel, The Living Daylights' Jeroen Krabbé as Van Der Woude, Robbie Coltrane as Matsui, Topher Grace and Bruce Willis. It is reasonably good to see all the stars brought together again, as well as the new additions, but it is just this sequel is just an excuse to see near same old same old with big stars, not even relatively amusing cameos from Willis can save it, the story is tedious, there is hardly any fast pace in the editing, and nowhere near enough cool to watch planning and thievery, it is a boring and near pointless action crime caper. Adequate!