I went and saw Ocean's Twelve during my holiday; I quite enjoyed it, though there were a number of thing that I thought weren't done as well as in the first one. But before I say more (and get into spoiler territory) I'll move into the "Extended Entry" zone.
The main flaw, I felt, was that the majority of the characters didn't have very much to do. This was especially noticable because they all get a "where are they now" moment at the beginning of the movie - but when we move to the meat of the action, many of them end up feeling like flunkies. I can recall when each of the characters was given a moment to shine by themselves in the first movie, but it's much harder to recall corresponding moments in the second.
From what I've seen, ensemble movies and shows are very difficult to pull off well. I felt that Ocean's Eleven did it well, despite the fact that it was clear who the "main character" was; perhaps the reason it was less well done in the second one was there were two or three "main characters", and correspondingly less time for the minor characters to shine.
I also ended up expecting more from Matt Damon's character - it felt like he was being set up for some development, but in the end he seemed to be very much where he started. Once we started finding out what was going on, I was hoping that his character would turn out to be the Night Fox, and that he would be scamming the others into doing something because he didn't think that they'd listen to him if he approached them directly, since they'd shown him repeatedly that they think of him as just being a kid. This would have made the scene with Robbie Coltrane's character much more interesting - the three experienced cons are pulling a joke on the newbie, but all the while the newbie is scamming them. Of course, this would have required a number of changes to the main plot, but I think that much of it could have been salvaged.
All that said, there were lots of things I liked about this movie. Some of the references back to the first movie were a bit clumsily done, but there were some nice moments, too. For example, in the first movie we meet Brad Pitt's character teaching poker to a bunch of minor (but recognisable) movie actors, playing themselves; in the second, Bruce Willis plays himself. What's more, I liked how they played with the unstated assumption that the actors in the movie either don't exist or look different in the movie world, by making Julia Roberts play a character pretending to be Julia Roberts. If the "real" Julia Roberts had confronted the character, would it be cooler to have Julia Roberts play herself, or a fairly good impersonator? :)
So despite it's flaws, I'd say it's worth watching if you liked the original - though I don't think there's anything in it that demands being seen on the big screen.
Posted by svend at January 6, 2005 10:35 PM