Release Date:
12/07/2001
Can we just say, right off the bat, how glad we are that summer’s over? Although Autumn has brought us a lot of bad things (war, anthrax, a new season of Will & Grace), it’s also finally bringing us some movies worth watching. Ocean’s Eleven, Steven Soderbergh’s remake of the 1960 rat pack home video, is a slick and funny heist movie that, like every other heist movie, works in the “How they do it” way rather than the “Will they do it?” way.
Most remakes are either entertaining but unnecessary (Planet of the Apes) or awful and totally unnecessary (The Haunting), so credit Soderbergh with creating the first remake that’s actually a complete and total improvement on its source, if only by being coherent and watchable. The original Ocean’s Eleven was just an excuse for Frank and the boys to drink on camera. The new one, while not original in any way (but think about it, are any of our favorite movies all that original? We don’t see many experimental Buñuel films in your DVD collection, buddy), is an excuse for an all-star cast (George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Carl Reiner, Elliot Gould, Don Cheadle…) to have a blast on camera. Perhaps the best thing about this movie, though, is that it shows that an Oscar and two films nominated for Best Picture haven’t killed Soderbergh’s inclination to cut loose and have a little lighthearted fun.
Most remakes are either entertaining but unnecessary (Planet of the Apes) or awful and totally unnecessary (The Haunting), so credit Soderbergh with creating the first remake that’s actually a complete and total improvement on its source, if only by being coherent and watchable. The original Ocean’s Eleven was just an excuse for Frank and the boys to drink on camera. The new one, while not original in any way (but think about it, are any of our favorite movies all that original? We don’t see many experimental Buñuel films in your DVD collection, buddy), is an excuse for an all-star cast (George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, Carl Reiner, Elliot Gould, Don Cheadle…) to have a blast on camera. Perhaps the best thing about this movie, though, is that it shows that an Oscar and two films nominated for Best Picture haven’t killed Soderbergh’s inclination to cut loose and have a little lighthearted fun.