Review: Ocean's Thirteen

Ocean's Eleven is hands down one of the best remakes to ever come out of Hollywood. The creative team did everything in their power to avoid every single trapping and cliche that ever reared its ugly head in a caper film. They collaborated on a project that took all of those over played conventions and spun them on their heads, creating a new style all their own. Which brings us to Ocean's Thirteen...

The third installment of the Ocean series kicks right in to fourth gear, where within the opening minutes we find Elliott Gould's Reuben character being hustled out of his stake in a new hotel by Willie Bank, a known swindler who cuts out his partners so he can claim all of the glory to himself. This betrayal leaves Reuben pennyless and he suffers a heart attack because of it. Now it's up to Danny and his crew to teach Bank a lesson he'll never forget and get Reuben his money back. But they'll need the help from their former adversary Terry Benadict if they plan to pull it off.

I'm not going to say that this movie was aimed at being anything more than entertainment, because it isn't aspiring for Oscar gold. In terms of being a fun two hours with a familiar group of guys that we've grown attached to, Thirteen proves to be a fun night out. Only it reminds you a lot of that guy from high school who hasn't changed one bit. Still talking about the good old days and hardly every bringing up a new topic for discussion.

Unlike Twelve, a film many of us like to believe never happened, the entire crew is brought in to the coupe and are used throughout the entire film. No jail time for anyone not named George, Brad or Matt this time! But the film still feels cluttered with the entire Eleven crew brought back along with Garcia's Terry Benedict, Cassel's French catburgler François Toulour, and introduces Pacino as Willie Banks and the exquisite Ellen Barkin as his assistant. Wisely, Roberts and Zeta-Jones don't reprise their roles this time, but there are still more characters than there is screen time for them to all share.

But the movie isn't a complete loss, Soderberg continues to provide enough visual stimulation that the film istelf, on an artistic level, will leave viewers wide-eyed. He fills every inch of the screen making ample use of tones and contrast and, once again, uses a unique color palate to make even the most unimportant scene look and feel as if they're the most essential scene to the story.

The predictable formula that Soderberg was so intent on shattering with his Eleven remake has now become a formula itself with Thirteen. Unless he plans to shake things up all over again, the last thing we need is yet another sequel where a group of guys once again spout off witty code names for jobs, miraculously find heavy machinery that is convenient to the job, cleverly disguise themselves in ridiculous getups, and Clooney being smug the entire time.

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