Ocean's Twelve

Yikes, but this is not a patch on "Ocean's 11" (2001). Though many of the same cast have re-assembled, the story is lacking in just about everything that made the first one good. Somehow, "Benedict" (Andy Garcia), whom they royally fleeced last time, has tracked them all down and wants his cash back, or else! The gang realise that are about $100m short, so devise a cunning new robbery to make up the shortfall. Thing is, after their usual meticulous planing and execution, they discover that someone has beaten them to it. Same next time, and the next - who is this genius? Well, it turns out to be a rather confident French fellow "Toulour" (Vincent Cassel) who basically offers them duel. The theft of a Fabergé egg from Paris. He wins, they the are toast; they win and he will pay off "Benedict". All of this thievery has not gone unnoticed by Europol, however, and soon they have their own agent "Lahiri" (Catherine Zeta-Jones) on the case too. Problems here for me are - the story, though quite quirky, is poorly executed and there are just far too many people involved in the plot and sub-plots that after a while just become a bit dull. There's quite a fun scene with Julia Roberts as herself with Bruce Willis, but otherwise this is just an overlong sequel that really just smacked of people making more money at the expense of the style, characterisation and charm of the first in the series. As you'd expect, the production standards are great - the film looks really good, but the rest of it is just a bit underwhelming.

> "Come on, he's one guy, and he's French." Ocean's series goes global and I love it. The scenery, the music, the stellar cast... they did it again. I would say while this is about heists again, it doesn't focus on it as much, but I am cool with that because the storytelling, twists and cast are just so good.