OCEAN'S EIGHT (2018)

OCEAN'S EIGHT (2018)

Tagline: The plan is priceless.

(Action, Crime, Comedy) [PG-13]

If you're going to have a problem with stealing, then you're not going to like the rest of this conversation.

In this one, Debbie Ocean (played by Sandra Bullock) is getting out of prison and basically, she is just going to do what her older brother Danny did…get right back to the business of stealing. She decides to assemble of team of her and 8 other women to pull off a heist where they are going to steal the Toussait. It’s worth about $150 million from a Met Gala where it’s being worn by Dephne Kluger (Anne Hathaway) basically just to show it off. 

The set-up scenes for this movie were fine, but the problem I thought was more in the characters. It took a while in OCEANS ELEVEN for me to get what Danny’s motives were. In this one, they tell us Debbie’s motives, but they don’t tug at your heart. In fact, by the end of the movie, I pretty much wanted Debbie and Lou (played by Cate Blanchett) to just get caught. I also couldn't care less about Tammy (a housewife selling stolen stuff out of her garage played by Sarah Paulson). Almost no one in this movie was likable except for maybe Nine Ball (played by Rihanna) and to an extent Rose Weil (played by Helena Bonham Carter). At least both of them add a slight comedic flare. The acting mind you, is good (which makes sense since the main cast members have won four Oscars, 10 SAGs, 2 Emmys, 5 BAFTAs,  9 Grammys, and 6 Golden Globes when combining their careers), the characters just are not that likable. 

Writing-wise I think we could have gotten something better and the plotline is really rough. I don’t want to go into too many details on the issues with this thing, but it comes across as being a bit too fluffy at the end and ignoring how anything even remotely close to a heist like this might go in real life. Cinematically everything looks solid. It was directed by Gary Ross who also directed THE HUNGER GAMES. 

This movie is not without its funny moments, but they are few and far between. I wanted to like this spinoff movie as much as I did the first 3, but it just lacked the personality of the originals and comes across as more of a pretentious exercise in taking a decent idea and making it as unrelatable as possible. I am not going to say this isn’t a somewhat interesting movie as a standalone, but it doesn’t come close to the original and it’s very likely I will never watch this thing again. I definitely won’t be buying it even though I really like most of the people involved. 

It’s kind of like going to a friend’s workplace that you normally love to hang out with, only this time it’s to watch them work and they aren’t doing anything cool. They are just typing, sorting papers, and getting up to go to the bathroom to throw up because they mistakenly ate late-night fast food in a town with water contamination. That is what’s going on here. These talents are better in dozens and dozens of other settings and roles. 

For those reasons, I give OCEANS EIGHT a 3 out of 7.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF WARNER BROS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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