Steven Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Eleven” (2001) is one of those rare remakes that turned out to be substantially better than the original (from 1960).
Now he’s going for the gold with a star-studded sequel to the remake. Can his luck hold? That depends on how much affection you can generate for travelog-ish movies that resemble well-photographed celebrity parties.
Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Twelve” is not officially a remake because there was no sequel to the 1960 original starring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. But it’s similar to the increasingly loose and self-consciously cool Rat Pack films that followed the first “Ocean’s Eleven” — forgotten, shamelessly silly early-1960s screen-fillers like “Sergeants 3,” “4 for Texas” and “Robin and the Seven Hoods,” all starring Sinatra and friends.
Following in that let’s-party tradition, “Ocean’s Twelve” features more Hollywood in-jokes than a DreamWorks cartoon. If you thought “Shark Tale” or the “Shrek” movies were too insular for their own good, well, be prepared for a live-action onslaught of more of the same.
Julia Roberts plays a fictional character, Tess, who impersonates Julia Roberts (the credits facetiously claim to “introduce” “Tess” as playing Julia Roberts). Bruce Willis, who appeared with Roberts in “The Player,” turns up briefly as himself; incredibly, he falls for the Julia Roberts impersonation. Topher Grace, a Soderbergh discovery (from “Traffic”), turns up briefly to trash his latest movie with Dennis Quaid (“In Good Company”).
In the years since the cast of “Ocean’s Eleven” robbed $160 million from a Vegas casino boss, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), Tess has married the mastermind behind the robbery, Danny Ocean (George Clooney). They’re living relatively quietly in Connecticut when Benedict and his burly henchmen show up, demanding the money back — plus interest.
They have two weeks to deliver the cash. That also goes for Danny’s accomplices, including Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt), Linus Caldwell (Matt Damon), Virgil Malloy (Casey Affleck) and Turk Malloy (Scott Caan). Lousy businessmen, they’ve spent their millions, so they take off for Europe (plenty of screen time is devoted to Amsterdam, Paris and Italy’s gorgeous Lake Como), where they steal priceless paintings and plan to make off with a well-guarded Faberge egg.
New to the sequel are a European detective, Isabel Lahiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones), who is on to Rusty, and Francois Toulour (Vincent Cassell), an exceptionally limber jewel thief who makes a bet with Ocean and his gang. Eddie Izzard, Cherry Jones and Jeroen Krabbe barely register in cameo roles.
Very little of George Nolfi’s script is plausible, but then neither was the plot of Soderbergh’s “Ocean’s Eleven.” These movies are meant to coast on the cool charm of the actors, and sometimes that works. Caan and Affleck make a natural comic team, Damon wickedly pokes fun at his character’s perpetual bewilderment, and it’s great to see Zeta-Jones and Clooney dusting off the kinds of mind games they played in “Intolerable Cruelty.”
But there’s a smugness about this sequel that gradually becomes annoying. In the end, it’s far too pleased with itself.