Ocean's 8. (12A.)
Directed by Gary Ross.
Starring Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Rihanna and Helena Bonham Carter. 110 mins. Released on Monday 18th
Crime doesn't pay, so they say. But George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh's 2001 decision, much derided at the time, to get a gang together to remake the 50's Rat Pack heist movie really came up trumps. And we've been paying for it ever since.
Caper movies are so tricky to get right. You need a really good ear to fine tune the tone. Too light and it becomes frivolous; not light enough and it becomes a procedural drag, a lot of notions gone through for scant reward. I think audiences appreciated what a lightning-in-a-bottle wonder Ocean's 11 was at the time. The makers though seem to have thought they'd stumbled upon a sure-fire, easy to replicate hit formula: a terrible mistake they have stubbornly refused to accept despite the evidence of Oceans 12 and 13.
Now we have Ocean's Ladies, trying to surf along on the contemporary mood of female empowerment: Sisters Nicking Stuff For Themselves. Bullock is the sister of Clooney's Danny Ocean, now deceased, getting an all-female gang together to pull off a plan to steal a $150 million Cartier diamond necklace at the glitzy, celebrity cameo-packed Met Gala.
Ocean's 8 isn't a horrible film and approached in an indulgent mood may well do the job, but there isn't any great humour or invention to it. In the pub afterwards, I think you'll struggle to come up with any Good Bits to recall with a smile. The art of the heist movie is that it has to run a con on its audience, hoodwinking it into believing in its ridiculous and nonsensical plot, to misdirect attention away from all its gaping holes, at least until after the film is over. The plan Bullock has spent five years in prison perfecting doesn't have any snap to its execution or much Ta-Dah to its plot reversals.
That was why the first Ocean's was so special. The final scene when the eleven gather together in front of a Vegas hotel fountain display and then one by one drift away captured the satisfaction of having pulled off something frivolous but remarkable. It was a film that made you appreciate just how wonderful a Hollywood entertainment could be. In Ocean's 11 we all got away with it; in 8 we're all being taken.
Directed by Gary Ross.
Starring Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Rihanna and Helena Bonham Carter. 110 mins. Released on Monday 18th
Crime doesn't pay, so they say. But George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh's 2001 decision, much derided at the time, to get a gang together to remake the 50's Rat Pack heist movie really came up trumps. And we've been paying for it ever since.
Caper movies are so tricky to get right. You need a really good ear to fine tune the tone. Too light and it becomes frivolous; not light enough and it becomes a procedural drag, a lot of notions gone through for scant reward. I think audiences appreciated what a lightning-in-a-bottle wonder Ocean's 11 was at the time. The makers though seem to have thought they'd stumbled upon a sure-fire, easy to replicate hit formula: a terrible mistake they have stubbornly refused to accept despite the evidence of Oceans 12 and 13.
Now we have Ocean's Ladies, trying to surf along on the contemporary mood of female empowerment: Sisters Nicking Stuff For Themselves. Bullock is the sister of Clooney's Danny Ocean, now deceased, getting an all-female gang together to pull off a plan to steal a $150 million Cartier diamond necklace at the glitzy, celebrity cameo-packed Met Gala.
Ocean's 8 isn't a horrible film and approached in an indulgent mood may well do the job, but there isn't any great humour or invention to it. In the pub afterwards, I think you'll struggle to come up with any Good Bits to recall with a smile. The art of the heist movie is that it has to run a con on its audience, hoodwinking it into believing in its ridiculous and nonsensical plot, to misdirect attention away from all its gaping holes, at least until after the film is over. The plan Bullock has spent five years in prison perfecting doesn't have any snap to its execution or much Ta-Dah to its plot reversals.
That was why the first Ocean's was so special. The final scene when the eleven gather together in front of a Vegas hotel fountain display and then one by one drift away captured the satisfaction of having pulled off something frivolous but remarkable. It was a film that made you appreciate just how wonderful a Hollywood entertainment could be. In Ocean's 11 we all got away with it; in 8 we're all being taken.
