Dir. Steven Soderbergh
Writ. Brian Koppleman & David Levien
Act. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Al Pacino

I don't get it. The remake of Ocean's 11, done by the same group, had a plot and story and was nothing like the buddy movie that was the original Ocean's 11. Ocean's 12, while inferior to the remake with regards to story, plot, and acting, was much more like the original Ocean's 11 where all of the pal's get together to make a movie. So, if the "first" movie was a remake, and the second movie was a buddy movie, what is the point of the third movie? Beat's me. I sat through two hours of movie that seemed to have no conflict and all of the actors were phoning this one in while standing in line waiting to cash the checks they received for doing this film. With any luck, Ocean's 13 will be the final chapter of this series.

The story is that one of the original Ocean's 11 members Reuben, played by Elliot Gould (MASH,) is scammed by hotel mogul Willie Bank, played by Al Pacino (Two For the Money,) and loses all of his money, land, possessions, pet's, even his name. This causes Reuben to have a heart attack and end up in the hospital on death's door. So Danny Ocean, played by George Clooney (Syriana,) gets the remaining group members together and takes vengeance on Bank's by setting up a score that will cost banks the hotel/casino he is building in Las Vegas.

The biggest problem I have with the story is that there is zero conflict for me. At no time did I feel like they were not going to pull this score off. Every issue that arrived appeared to be small and contrite and the answer was just as bad. Another problem I had was that unlike the last two Ocean movies, this one has no humor in it. Oh, it does have enough to fill up a two and a half minute trailer, but that is it. No other laughs.

Another problem I had was the lack of eye candy in this movie. For the first one we had a 33 year old Julia Roberts, not horrible, but not Jessica Alba either. For the second movie that had a rode hard and put up wet Julia Roberts and the ultra hot, although tainted by Michael Douglas, Catherine Zeta-Jones. This time around they decided to give us the wrinkly Ellen Barkin (Trust the Man) and her surgically enhanced boobies. I know her character is a hard nosed business woman working for Banks and she is also a "cougar" but come on, there are hotter older woman out there than her, who can act just as good and don't look so weird with their surgically enhanced breast.

Al Pacino was the best actor by far, but for this film that is not saying much. It is like saying the second root canal was better than the other two, still painful but not as bad.

I can only hope that this is the end of the Ocean franchise. This movie is yet another gleaming example of the disappointment that has been the summer of 2007, with one exception, and that exception Knocked Up, is worth seeing instead of this pile of junk. It doesn't get my worst rating just because it is not bad, and it does have Eddie Izzard (My Super Ex-girlfriend) in it, all too briefly, but it is just not a very good film.

Brian - the Naked Gun