IHAO on ... Ocean's Thirteen

This movie is dumb.  And it is pretty fun.  And the characters are much more interesting, with more interesting beats and things to do.  And it makes sense.  And the con is cool, believable, and action packed.  Overall, this movie is way better than I expected.  I expected to rant and rave about all the stupid, but in the end, this movie was actually semi-thrilling and pretty good.  Pacino was a great addition to the cast, and Ellen Barkin was just wonderful.  Both were great.  Really, everyone was better and more interesting.  Hell, even Clooney showed some emotion finally in a lot of the scenes.

The plot this time around: One of the originals has a heart attack as he is being screwed out of a big casino build with Pacino, who is completely evil all the way through.  So the gang tries to find a way to get revenge, which is not a good business to be in as a thief.  They have to go through so many hoops and obstacles, but ultimately succeed, and even screw over Andy Garcia (villain from the past two films) one more time.

The script was a lot tighter this time around, and it gave a lot of great moments of levity and interest for our characters, such as Casey Affleck and Scott Caan in the interest of screwing with the dice for the casino at the manufacturing end up starting a revolution and getting the workers better work rates just because they can't help but do what is right there.  All the characters were indeed that, characters, with multi-facets and interesting problems to overcome as they try to pull of this almost impossible heist.

Heh, thought I'd use Star Wars didn't ya?  Neverending Story!!

Sure there, is still some stupid, like an AI security system that gathers more information than 100,000 Library of Congresses, including reading peoples faces, heart rates, sweat, and pheromones to tell if they cheated or genuinely won.  It was all pomp just to make things seem harder, as they overcame that super easy, and that wasn't the real threat anyway, which was great.  The threat was the size of the task ahead of them, which truly felt like they needed 13 people to accomplish.

All the hate I lathered on the previous two, I'd rewatch this one.  It was more fun and more interesting.  It isn't a masterpiece or anything, but it was enjoyable, which is more than I can say for the first two films.

Grade: B