Ocean's Twelve (2004)

Director:

Steven Soderbergh

Writers (WGA):

George Nolfi (written by)
George Clayton Johnson (characters) ...

Release Date:

10 December 2004 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

You cross one ocean, you face them all

Plot:

Daniel Ocean recruits one more team member so he can pull off three major European heists in this sequel to Ocean's 11.

Plot Keywords:

Heist | Thief | Sequel | Con Artist | Revenge

Awards:

1 win & 7 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Tue. Dec. 15

5:00 PM

AMC

Cast

Brad Pitt	...	Rusty Ryan
Catherine Zeta-Jones	...	Isabel Lahiri
George Clooney	...	Danny Ocean
Ed Kross	...	Bank Officer
Julia Roberts	...	Tess Ocean
Don Tiffany	...	House Painter
Anne Jacques	...	Shop Owner
David Sontag	...	Plainclothes Goon #1
Larry Sontag	...	Plainclothes Goon #2
Andy Garcia	...	Terry Benedict
Casey Affleck	...	Virgil Malloy
Dina Connolly	...	Virgil's Fiancée
Scott Caan	...	Turk Malloy
Nelson Peltz	...	Partygoer
Mini Anden	...	Supermodel

Also Known As:

Ocean's 12 (USA) (alternative spelling)

MPAA:

Rated PG-13 for language.

Runtime:

125 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Dutch | French | Italian | Mandarin

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS (8 channels)

Certification:

Malaysia:U | Portugal:M/12 | Canada:PG (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Ontario) | New Zealand:M | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Brazil:12 | Canada:G (Quebec) | Chile:14 | Czech Republic:12 | Denmark:A | Finland:S | Germany:6 | Hong Kong:IIA | Iceland:L | Netherlands:AL | Norway:A | Peru:14 | Philippines:PG-13 | Singapore:PG | South Korea:12 | Sweden:Btl | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | Switzerland:12 (canton of Zurich) | UK:12A (original rating) | UK:12 (video rating) (2005) | USA:PG-13 (certificate #41268) | Greece:K

Filming Locations:

's-Gravenhage, Zuid-Holland, Netherlands

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Some scenes which were supposed to be at the Amsterdam station were filmed at Haarlem train station (20 km away). Signs on the platform indicate "Amsterdam centraal" but on the real platform it says "Haarlem Centraal".

Goofs:

Revealing mistakes: The pillow offered by Linus as part of the disguise for Tess is a square model. Later when Tess removes the pillow it is clearly a round model.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Rusty Ryan: Hi.
Isabel Lahiri: How'd it go?
Rusty Ryan: Lousy.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in 2006 MTV Movie Awards (2006) (TV)

Soundtrack:

Kashmir

Ocean's Twelve: 6/10

It's inevitable, isn't it? After the success of the remake of Ocean's Eleven, out comes the sequel three years later. I liked the style of the teaser trailer (and was probably one of the only ones who didn't mind the name), so naturally, I was looking forward to the movie. Naturally, it's a sequel, so it's inferior to the original (which I liked more than the original of the original). The entire cast is back (plus one more, obviously) for the necessary foreign-country locations and trendy scene transitions. There's the constant music, the people with the general European accents (well, villains), and every other caper movie cliché in the books.

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his eleven/twelve compadres are forced to pay back the money that they stole from Terry Benedict's (Andy Garcia) casinos three years earlier. To get the money, they have to steal it in Europe.

Where the first movie was fun, this sequel was mildly entertaining. It went on a little long, but was never boring. It's watchable (as all crime movies like these should be), but not really entertaining. I wasn't having fun while watching a lot of Ocean's Twelve. I wasn't bored, either. I was in Limbo of the movie world. All of the Vegas glitz added to the first, and here it's drab European backgrounds. Steven Soderbergh's directing also makes the film harder to enjoy. The film's choppy-we don't see events that happened until after the fact (if that makes any sense), and there are so many subplots and characters with similar sounding names that eventually we stop caring. Whenever a movie makes me do that, I usually focus more in on the fun aspects of the movie. And sure, the movie had its fun moments, and never left me bored, but overall, it just lacked that ultra-cool style that the first one had.

Then again, every actor's back in cool form. Catherine Zeta-Jones is the newbie here, and although her character is barely defined, she still manages to be cool. George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt (being on screen probably more than anyone else), Matt Damon-they're all cool. But it's obvious that this isn't the best sequel that could have been made for Ocean's Eleven-the movie was originally written for a completely different movie, and then readapted to a sequel. Because of that, there aren't really any reminders on who these people were. I remembered Clooney, Roberts, Garcia, and a few character names and quirks (such as Pitt's obsessive eating), but, really, who were these people? Did Soderbergh think that we would all rush out to see the first one before seeing this? I'll bet as many people did that as the number who went to see the Russian Solyaris after Soderbergh made Solaris.

The caper this time around isn't as interesting (the major one doesn't come in until halfway through), nor as easy to follow. In fact, the whole movie's basically a convoluted mess. The subplot about Isabel's father, things like that...if there's a definition of worthless, that's it. Also, that "Julia Roberts" bit went on for too long. We got the joke there. At that moment, I think that the movie thought it was funny enough to abandon basically the entire plot and go with a ten minute schtick, when there was basically no other humor in the movie. Still, Ocean's Twelve isn't terrible, and can offer a good time if you're the right person.

My rating: 6/10 Rated PG-13 for language.