OCEAN'S TWELVE

Hanging out with Ocean's Twelve for two hours is like getting to bask in the presence of the cool kids. You get to lounge around with them, laugh at their jokes, and oggle their beauty... but when they race off in their fancy cars and tailored outfits, you get a spray of dust and gravel in your face and realize that you weren't invited along on all the fun.

Basically Ocean's Twelve is an extended music video fashion spread. It doesn't take a heck of a lot of concentration to watch (I was actually staining bookshelves while watching this flick), and is about as involving as flipping through an issue of GQ. I found myself thinking, "Nice outfit! Isn't he handsome! What is this cool retro-Euro-hipster song playing in the background? Where is my watch? Did I leave it at work, or is it somewhere in my pile of laundry? Has the cat been fed? Dang! Catherine Zeta-Jones is hot!"

George Clooney and his ten pals are back. Andy Garcia, hotshot Vegas hotel owner, was ripped off royally in Ocean's Eleven by this new Rat Pack, and he's pissed. He gives Clooney & Co. (which includes the full returning all-star cast of Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, et. al) two weeks to return the millions and million of loot (plus interest), or else meet a fate worse than death: death! The Eleven are too hot in the U.S., so they go to exciting European locales to try to snatch some Euros, and fast! But hot on their tail is hot Isabel (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who is also hot for ex-Brad Pitt. Anyways.

Like I said, you are not really looking at characters; you are looking at extremely famous people horsing around with each other, cracking jokes, looking cool, and pretending to be heist-meisters. They are all charming and funny and charismatic and beautiful, but Ocean's Twelve spends far less time on the actual heist (that is, the story) than its predecessor Ocean's Eleven. This time around, we loiter around in exotic locales, like Amsterdam, and Italy's picturesque Lake Como (where George Clooney apparently owns property where his pals party in real life), all to the beat of a retro-hipster soundtrack peppered with Euro-techno beats. It makes you want to snap your fingers and wear a sharp suit!

But at the same time, so what? There is so much chemistry among the group of stars that it is a shame that the majority of them—like Bernie Mac and Don Cheadle for instance—are wasted, given barely any screen time. Clooney and Roberts and Pitt and Damon seem to be having fun, and are enjoyable enough. But this movie seems like a two-hour extras-outtake from a really cool mini-series. The characters are funny and charming, but half the time they seem like they are taking a lunch break from a real movie set.

...And you know what? That's too bad. I feel like I would have enjoyed that other movie a lot more.

[And to make Ocean's Twelve seem more like a throwaway project: Other than the theatrical trailer, there are no extras on the DVD. Talk about a lazy cop out!]