Ocean's Twelve Review

This is tough, real tough. How are we, without using a cliché, supposed to tell you that sequels should never be made? Well, we cannot use a cliché as that makes us sound highly blasé. And we would rather be non-blasé than use a cliché.

Ocean's Twelve is an improvement over its prequel in that the title is grammatically correct (notice the apostrophe that was missing in Oceans Eleven). Having Catherine Zeta-Jones does not hurt either. The script, though, is conspicuous by its absence. Pardon the cliché.

It has been three years since the Bellagio heist, and Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia) is still a little hoarse over it. Actually, he is looking forward to chopping Daniel Ocean (George Clooney) into a 160 million pieces and feeding them to as many dogs. The only way out is to pay him back the amount plus accrued interest - a meager sum of a little over 192 million.

The famed eleven now regroups in Amsterdam to pull off a job that would provide them with enough dough and provide Isabel Lahiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones) with enough reason to come running back into Rusty's (Brad Pitt) arms. Only, ten of them are not aware of the second part. Really, this thing is getting a little out of hand now. First it was Daniel for Tess (Julia Roberts) and now Rusty? Tch Tch�

Last time around, Rusty and Danny had great fun at Linus' (Matt Damon) expense. This time, though, they have much more than fun - they get him to do their dirty work while they are cooling off their heels in a Dutch jail where for some reason unknown to humanity all officials speak in perfect English.

As is to be expected in any caper movie, while things are shown to be going extremely awry everything is going as per plan. Their debt to Terry is paid off, and Isabel and Rusty break into a song and dance sequence. Okay, that thing about song and dance was not entirely true but it does kind of drive the point home.

The movie stars the who's who of Hollywood, and only Steven Soderbergh could have pulled off a casting coup like this. So, even though the movie is not all that great you tend to go with it anyway. Some scenes genuinely tickle your ribs but, for most part, the movie is a little confusing. There are just too many temporal shifts for anyone other than Einstein to keep track of.

That said, the movie still has something in it. May be it is the cast, may be it is the direction, may be it is the expectation itself, but it does warrant a look-see.