No Ocean Too Deep

Watching Ocean's 13 in Mid Valley yesterday, I felt myself sinking down into my seat, sliding down with languid ease as I soaked in this lazily paced flick which is generally entertaining but lacking in any dramatic tension. And it dawned upon me that the Ocean's flicks are an anachronism in this age of big, noisy block busters that seem intent on mining conflict from the simplest acts. It prefers instead to coast breezily along, fueled by star power, witty banter and at this stage, our comfortable familiarity with the team that mirrors their own seasoned association with one another. There are scenes of Danny and Rusty (Brad Pitt) talking and like an old married couple, each finishes the others' sentence and some sentences don't even need completion. They know each other .. and we're supposed to as well.

You know without a shadow of a doubt that Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and his industrious cohorts will succeed in making Al Pacino's casino owner pay, and pay dearly for causing the financial and physical collapse of friend and mentor Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould).

There's the old thrill of watching big name starts decked out in designer duds and generally having a whale of a time scheming, joking, planning and executing a heist that, barring a few odd glitches, will come off with clockwork precision.

There are worker revolutions, Matt Damon with a Cyrano nose, cash flow problems which see Ocean's 11 nemesis Terry Benedict (the always watchable Andy Garcia) turn ally (albeit temporarily), Ellen Barkin getting aroused by pheromones, an unfortunate guest's horrendous stay in the hotel , numerous slot machines, card dispensers and dices being rigged, a state of the art security system being thwarted by a mock earthquake and somewhere on the sidelines, a former rival from Ocean's 12 lies in wait.

It all sounds a lot more frenetic than how it plays out.

I missed the intricate and tighter plotting of the original and the combined Female star power of Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta Jones which illuminated the sequel, and the normally fiery Pacino is surprisingly muted ( and not a little tanned) here but outside of a planetorium few viewing experiences offer such a glittering galaxy of stars for the price of a ticket.

Perfect lazy Sunday fare.