Let's get something straight. Ocean's Eleven refers to the fact that there are eleven people on the team to do the "Benedict Job." Ocean's Twelve refers to the fact that, in desperation, they add Danny's wife Tess to the team, making a twelve person team. And since Tess isn't in Ocean's Thirteen, her place as number twelve is taken by tech guy Roman. In Ocean's Thirteen the thirteenth member of the team is not, as I've seen mentioned in various places online, Ellen Barkin's character. She's as much a victim as Pacino's Willy Bank is. No, the thirteenth member is Terry Benedict, the villain of the first two films who goes with the old "enemy of my enemy" routine.
Of course, there were always more people involved in the various scams than got credit as part of the Eleven, Twelve, or Thirteen. There's Bruiser, the big guy who fakes beating up Danny in Eleven, gets Frank out of jail in Twelve, and places bets to help bring down the Bank in Thirteen. Or Roman, who provides crucial tech support in Twelve before being promoted into a full member of the gang in Thirteen. Or the girl who swipes the security card, or the girls who distract the real motorcycle jumper, or the one who works the front desk, or...well, you get the idea.
With all that out of the way, how does Ocean's Thirteen stack up to its predecessors? Not great. Oh it's an amusing enough film, but you get the feeling that everyone involved is pretty tired of it. There's less energy, less chemistry, less pop to it all. Part of it is the fact that rather than having any sympathetic female characters, the only woman with any significant screen time is a one note "cougar" who get victimized by the team. Tess and Isabel are both missing from Ocean's Thirteen, and they're missed.
One reason the film may lack the energy of the previous films in the series is that it was the first one filmed less like an extended vacation than a regular Hollywood production. The way I've read it, the original Ocean's Eleven starring Sinatra and the Rat Pack was more of an excuse to party in Vegas while occasionally filming a movie than it was a serious film shoot. I've further read that the idea of getting together a bunch of friends and colleagues for a similar, if less extravagant, fun time was a big motivating factor behind all the big names who showed up in Ocean's Eleven and Twelve. Eleven was the Vegas vacation, while Twelve was the European one.
Ocean's Thirteen, however, was where the party stopped. By some accounts, Thirteen was a much more rushed production, allowing for less fun and games for the cast and crew. Furthermore, series regular Julia Roberts wasn't in it at all, purportedly due to script concerns from the studio. All that made it less fun for everyone, and that maybe comes out in the final film.
To me, though, the bigger problem is that there really isn't any mystery to it. Danny and Rusty explain the plan to Roman early on, and that's what happens, with a couple of minor problems along the way. It kind of kills the dramatic tension that way, clever and unusual as it might be. I appreciate clever as much as the next man, and more than most, but sometimes you're better off being less clever and more dramatic, and this is one of those times.
What's more, the film feels much more like a sequel to Ocean's Eleven than Twelve did. It lacks that spark of originality and difference that made Twelve my favorite. We're back in Vegas. Check. We're hitting a casino. Check. The guy in charge is a ruthless bastard. Check. And so on and so forth. Hell, they even recreate the scene from near the end of Ocean's Eleven where they pan across all the faces of the team as they stare at some Vegas attraction. I get that it's sort of a homage and all, but it doesn't feel like we're going anywhere new. The old ground may be familiar and comfortable, but that doesn't make it better.
Still, I enjoyed Ocean's Thirteen. If there were to be another one, I'd probably see it. Of course, since director Steven Soderbergh says that the death of Bernie Mac precludes his ever doing another Ocean's movie, and in fact says he's retiring after he shoots the upcoming Liberace film, even if there were to be another one, it wouldn't have the same feel. And since the films have been doing progressively less well financially from installment to installment, I doubt there's much if any studio pressure to bring the series back.
Of course, I'd have thought that about the Men in Black films, and Men in Black III is coming out this summer, so what do I know?
All in all, the series probably would have been better served either doing something new, like some kind of heist in Asia maybe, but if you're going to do a bone standard sequel, then I guess this is a decent one. I'd have preferred if they'd gone out with Twelve's ending, but I don't regret seeing Thirteen. I do regret what I see as a wasted opportunity, but it's hardly the first nor last film to disappoint me in that regard.
Netflix should be getting me the Sinatra Ocean's Eleven sometime early next week, so I'll wrap up this series of retrospectives as well as give my final thoughts on all things Ocean's Eleven then.
I'll see you when I see you.
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