Ocean's Thirteen

4.3 stars

I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable this one was. Nobody takes it too seriously, yet there's a lot of quality here, both in the easy humor and interplay of the cast, and in the occasionally spectacular cinematography by Soderbergh. Even the script is quite good.

What isn't good is the transfer to both dvd and blu-ray. I watched the dvd and was amazed at how washed out and grainy it was, so I rented the BD, and it was no better. The only positive is that the crappy transfer saturates the colors even more than they already are, and it suits Soderbergh's splashy, neon vision of Vegas quite well.

The real star here is the camera, and it's used to perfection, sweeping down gleaming hallways and floating over the very nicely CGI'ed Bank Hotel. SS has become a very sharp director, getting fine performances from all his actors while framing them, the town, and its cheesy architecture in a style reminiscent of both the best noir and '70s crime flicks. The music echoes it all and Ocean's 13 becomes quite a pleasure to watch if you're a fan of either of those genres.

You need to turn off your logic filter, though, as the plot has endless holes, but none of this is meant to be taken too seriously. Pacino gets this and turns in a very funny performance in its own edgy way. Ditto for Barkin. In fact, everybody in the movie is fun to watch, and Pitt and Clooney make a truly great team. You can imagine the fun these guys all had shooting this in Vegas and it shows up on screen. There are plenty of laughs to go around and it's all a breezy good time.

Pure fluff, but very entertaining fluff done with technical brilliance, O13 is well worth seeing if you like any of these actors, great cinematography, Vegas, and crime capers in general. Even the weak transfer is easy to let go of; it adds its own grainy color and in some ways fits in just fine.
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