*** Official OCEAN'S TWELVE Discussion Thread

I would be making a trip Fri night to see this but I have to wait for a g/f who cant go till Sun, so I told her Id wait. Oceans 11 is one of our mutual favs and we used to date; so I guess im a sucker.

Damn!

PS Aaron, you are not alone.

You are not alone, my friend.

I know no one here has yet seen it... but is a screening of 11 essential to appreciating 12?

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H

I don't know if I would say it is "essential", but it definitely wouldn't hurt.

Yeah well, the g/f wants to see it tomorrow... I would hate to shell out $5+ at Bluckbuster to watch it tonight or tomorrow when I get it through Netflix early next week...

I think I'll just go tomorrow. All style no substance I hear, so that should be fine.

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H - Bah

$5 at blockbuster??? My local blockbuster prices non new release dvd rentals for $1.99

I recommend watching the first one before going to see the second. The first one does a really good job of introducing all of the characters. I also believe twelve will have plot points which fall back on the storyline from eleven.

If this one is half as good as the first I'll be thrilled. Like I said earlier, I absolutely LOVED ocean's eleven.

with 54 reviews in, the best the film can muster is a 63% fresh rating at rotten tomatoes.
the first film is probably the only Steven Soderbergh movie i didn't like (haven't seen them all tho).
no real hurry to see this one, but hopefully it will make a $hitload of dough so i can get another movie like Solaris in the not too distant future.

I loved Solaris and I loved Oceans 11.

More good movies for me!

Saw it today and greatly enjoyed it. I liked Ocean's 11, but this is much better.

Soderbergh seems to be having a great deal of fun with not only the characters and story, but the whole style of the piece. And that fun translates to an audience who is willing to invest some effort in paying attention.

Looking at the early comments in this thread when the film was just announced, I saw one that said this movie would be another case of "style over substance". Not only was that a grossly unfair comment (made before the filming had even completed), but it also turns out to be inaccurate. It has both style AND substance. OK, not the kind of substance that will spark intellectual debates, but it has a challenging plot with twists and turns and great characters.

Realistic? Nah...But it's a heist movie. And this one delivers more than you might expect.

have to ammend what i wrote earlier.
its not that i hated O11, its just that its the first Soderbergh movie i've seen that i left feeling "pleasant but...eh"
and the more distance i had from it, the less and less i felt any need to revisit it.
mostly it was the chemistry (or cool cucumber attitude) that seemed, to me, a little too cutesy/forced.
the actual heist itself was fun though.

You gotta love the Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Be sure to stick around for Julia Roberts' screen credit at the end. That was worth a chuckle too.

Saw it last night. Overall, not sure if it's as solid as the first one. For one thing, each person was selected for their particular talents in the first movie, but that goes out the window here with everyone doing whatever needs doing. I suppose you can argue that it's because of the desperate situation they've been put in, but it doesn't feel right. And Danny Ocean basically disappears for a long stretch at the end, which doesn't seem to serve any real purpose in the scam they're pulling. But it was entertaining, I'll give it that.

I wasn't a big fan of the first one -- thought it was OK. I felt quite uninvolved and bored by this one.

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

I am going to have to go see it again just to catch all of the details that I missed the first time.

I really like the Oceans 11 remake, but I was bored silly with Oceans 12.

First one was slick, interesting and right to the point. The new one just drug and drug and nothing was interesting.

I agree. There was a little too much camera play and movement, with close-ups and zooms on every cast member in each new scene for my taste (kind of the "we don't have much plot, so let's make the camera a co-star and give face time to each character" school of film-making).

Ocean's 11 had more "meat on the bones" - we saw more of the actual scam unfold, even if we couldn't put all the pieces together at the time - hence, it's re-watchability factor was high. In Ocean's 12, we're completely clueless until the very end for how they've pulled it off.

Its a VERY different film from the first. While I liked it, I'd choose 11 over 12.

Speaking of, I absolutely HATE the tagline for this movie!

"Twelve is the New Eleven."

Yeah, I know that it sounds very Soderbergh-ish, but I still hate it.

Just got back from this. I guess I liked the first one more, though I only saw it once, when it was originally out. They laid it on a bit thick near the end with this one, but it was still fun. The people needling Bruce Willis was pretty classic--"when I saw her not talking to you at dinner, I figured the whole thing out!"

The whole "she looks just like Julia Roberts" thing was a little obvious, in my book, not all that witty. But there were some funny details thrown in, just as asides. One of the group called her "J-Ro" when they were hustling her out of the museum, that was pretty funny.

Aaron, I agree that as a heist movie, the first one was clearly a lot better. But you must have enjoyed the Red Sox-Yankees brawl on the train, right?

Hmmm...

~Edwin

I just LOVED the tune they played during the scene with the lasers. But that one doesn´t seem to be on the official soundtrack?? Or is it? I couldn´t find it. That´s one reason to buy the OST IMO.
GREAT tune!

Which/What song is it?

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

Was it really necessary to lift up the building 3 inches via the foundation?

The Ocean's series is reminiscent of the Cannonball Run series.

Soderbergh is clearly having a ton of fun as Director and DP with all sorts of style and aplomb. He's on fire and loving it.

The stars are all playing around with each other - there's a TON of improv here. They're just lapping up the coolness that they exude.

But, if you don't look for quality filmmaking and let go - you can have fun with it. Because they are clearly having a blast. I love it! Sooooo goofy and over the top.

Kourtrajmé - Thé à La Menthe

I noticed the same thing about the statuettes. Also, I felt that that scene in general was just extremely poorly done with the really CGI-looking lasers (which is really more the fault of the director and SFX crew than Vincent Cassel).

I definitely enjoyed the first movie much more than this one.

It was the only way they could get a straight shot to the key pad through the open window.

Of course, maybe it would have been easier to just put together a rig on the rooftop that could lower the gun instead of trying to raise the window. But then that wouldn't have made the setup for the detective's revelation very interesting.

I'm confused on one thing though, when did the whole egg theft take place? I mean the actual theft on the train? Was it before or after Amsterdam's foiled heist? It seems to have been sometime before the challenge is actually issued by the Night Fox...right?

Am I the only one who found the whole Julia Roberts thing extremely self- indulgent on her (and Willis') part? It's mostly the duration, it was cute at first, but it just went on for far too long, I felt I was watching stars padding themselves on the back about their kewl lifestyle...

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H