OCEAN'S 12 (2004)

Sequel to: OCEAN'S 11 (2001)
Why the Original Rocked: Large star-cast with everyone written with a purpose, fluid entertainment, nice twist
Why the Sequel Sucks: Large star-cast that doesn't have a creative purpose, bloated flatness, stupid twist

Steven Soderbergh's OCEAN'S 11 was disposable entertainment, but that crew had fun making it, and its a fluff fun flick. Maybe they didn't put enough serious effort that could hvae made a REALLY good movie, but screw it. Its a nice movie.

The sequel though just sucks.

The initial idea for this series was that it would keep the core squad of robbers (Clooney, Pitt, Damon) while assembling 8 new robbers for each movie (and thus give alot of cool actors and movie stars a chance to get attached to a surefire moneymaker). Instead, that was botched and everyone from OCEAN'S 11 was brought back, but thats the problem.

Alot of characters that had purpose or at least a logical function in the first movie now exists that don't do anything at all. They might as well not have been featured. The scripted narrative is just bloated with Soderbergh trying and failing to give EVERYONE something to work with, at the deterent of the organic storytelling flow and of the actual story itself.

Speaking of that, the "twist" pulled in the third act of OCEAN'S 12 escapes my comprehension of which bad words to use.

Ok, its f****** retarded.* I mean, it doesn't even make any logical sense, and what I don't understand is, Soderbergh is above such stupidity, and he greenlights it. What the hell Steve?

Apparently, OCEAN'S 13 returns the series to being fluff entertainment like #11, which is nice. Too bad OCEAN'S 12 was 12 too many mistakes.

*=Think about it. You have Matt Damon scrambling to salvage the crew's robbery in the third act, but with the twist revealed, and him being in it from the beginning....why would he scramble to salvage the operation?