Ocean's Thirteen: Critic Reviews

[A] delectably elaborate and savory souffle of a mother-of-all-scams sequel.

With Ocean's Thirteen, the gang's all here, looking fighting trim and Hollywood beautiful, at your disposable pleasure.

Fantastically smug, empty picture, which comes complete with a nasty-tasting dab of misogyny.

Though it takes a little while before it really takes off, this slick bauble of a movie qualifies as the best of the summer 'threequels" -- at least thus far.

The details, the plots, the stratagems, the counter-stratagems mount and mount and mount until the thing reaches a point of such overplotted density it can't be penetrated.

This might be the first piece of escapism to have a whiff of public service at its heart.

A spectacle blatantly predicated on a smug gaggle of mega movie stars in boss threads ostentatiously having fun by pretending to steal the house's money, while actually taking yours.

Ocean's Thirteen is passingly enjoyable summer fluff, but if you can find a more genial, less edgy caper movie, you might want to own it as a pet.

Hilarity-free.

Why put so much sheen on a movie that warrants and provokes nothing more than mild diversion? It's like serving sloppy joes on fine china.

In Hollywood's version of Vegas, I'll have the surf, and the turf, and the vegetarian, and anything else Soderbergh wants to serve me.

Is it possible that only a director so distrustful of surfaces could surrender so thrillingly to the big lie?

After a lot of buildup, not much happens at the climax.

I know full well I'm expected to Suspend My Disbelief. Unfortunately, my disbelief is very heavy, and during Ocean's Thirteen, the suspension cable snapped.

Thirteen is all about maintaining a barely perceptible smirk behind an impassive pose. The line between cool and cold is a thin one, however. Cool isn't the word for Thirteen; it's just smug.

Predictably adolescent and smarmy, with the mix of sentimentality and cynical flippancy that's becoming Steven Soderbergh's specialty (even when he's pretending to make art films), this is chewing gum for the eyes and ears, and not bad as such.

Evocatively shot with the saturated color of '60s film and accompanied by David Holmes' retro-mod score, Ocean's Thirteen is a boy's-night-out lark that girls can enjoy.

Ocean's Thirteen is as lazy and laid-back as a softball game with the beer keg at second. And it's just as enjoyable.

Ocean's Thirteen is hack Hollywood garbage, the sort of film that thinks so little of its supposedly sure-thing audience that it never breaks a sweat. That's not cool; that's lazy.

A sequel (or three-quel, if you will) that returns to the vicarious fun of the first movie, Ocean's Eleven, and all but erases the not-so-fond memory of the preening ego-trip that was Ocean's Twelve.

Flat, abstruse, predictable and unable to raise your pulse rate higher than a blip on an EKG.

As smooth as a good mojito, as stylish as an Armani suit and as meaningful in the grand scheme of things as yesterday's Las Vegas betting odds, Ocean's Thirteen continues the breezy good times of the first two series entries without missing a beat.

Hollywood's summer of risk-free programming continues with the fourth three-peat in six weeks, Ocean's Thirteen, the least overbearing of the franchise installments rolled out so far.

Its a funny, chummy movie that is every bit as over-plotted, absurd and indulgent as Ocean's Twelve. The big improvement? This time the ham is served on wry.

An exercise in stylish bravado that is as substantial as a catfight between supermodels.