Upon Further Review: Ocean's Twelve

I can tend to be very critical of movies. Especially sequels of movies that I really enjoy. For instance, see my opinion on the two Matrix sequels. With the advent of a new summer and, subsequently, a new round of summer sequels, this issue came to a head again. One of the movies that we were interested in seeing (if for no other reason than completeness) was Ocean's Thirteen. We had seen the first two, so we figured that we should probably see the third. I should point out that both Anne and I really enjoyed the first one. I loved the pacing. I loved the twists. I loved the cast. Then we saw the second one. I thought that it was horribly unbelievable. I know, I know, the first one wasn't exactly believable either, but that's not the point.

The entire movie seemed to hinge on the very flimsy premise that they were able to get things completely in place pretty much before the main story even started. And it was all mainly a ploy anyway. All things considered, it was a fairly disappointing movie to me. After we watched the third movie, I had pretty much the same reaction as I did following the third pirates move: it was better than the second one. Anne, not letting me rest on making a blanket statement like that, asked the obvious question: "Why?" Nuts. I wasn't prepared for that. Now, I have to defend my position, and to be perfectly honest, all I had was my memories of the impressions that I had of the movie instead of any actual remembrance of the "why." I mentioned this to a friend of mine at work, and he had said that he felt the same way after seeing Ocean's Twelve, but that "it gets better after watching it again." Since we really didn't have any memories of the second movie, we figured that we should get the first two and watch them again. I somehow made it through a full-screen version of the first movie (I'm kind of a jerk when it comes to movies, in case you haven't noticed. I need to watch the wide-screen, or it drives me nuts), and then we came to watching Ocean's Twelve again. I have to say that my friend was right. Perhaps I was simply paying closer attention this time around. Or maybe it was a case of wanting to pay closer attention this time. Either way, it seemed to make more sense. As such, I enjoyed the movie more. Is it better than the first one? No. Is it better than the third? No. However, it's now closer than it was before. I guess that's something.