3445. Ocean’s Thirteen (2007)

Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Running Time: 122 mins

Ocean’s Thirteen is an American film and the third in the Ocean’s series. After one of their number is double-crossed by a casino owner, Danny Ocean reunites the crew for an epic heist on one of Las Vegas’ biggest casinos.

While its star power still carries it through, Ocean’s Thirteen is woefully lacking in comparison to its two predecessors, particularly the original Ocean’s Eleven. Despite the charisma of its A-list cast and a few welcome additions, this movie never has the sleek thrill to it that made the past films so irresistibly enjoyable.

There’s a lot that Ocean’s Thirteen does wrong that Eleven and Twelve did right. The biggest difference, however, is that despite its superstar cast, the movie is really missing Julia Roberts opposite George Clooney and Brad Pitt.

Through her relationship with Clooney in the past two films, Roberts brought a real vulnerability to his character, showing that he was a lot more than a swashbuckling casino thief, and making him a genuinely real and likable person, which only made you support him more as the heists unfolded.

This time, Clooney leads a team of his friends who reunite again, and that’s about it. There’s nowhere near the same level of emotional drama as in the first two movies, and the film really struggles to keep you engaged over the course of its two-hour runtime, acting as little more than a build-up for a Mission: Impossible-style heist.

As a result, the fun of Ocean’s Thirteen is basically watching all of its A-listers get caught up in a variety of situations, and while George Clooney and Brad Pitt are frankly a little more low-energy than in the past two films, Matt Damon does a great job at delivering a lot of the laughs in this movie.

Al Pacino, too, is a welcome addition to the cast, and his fire and gusto on screen outstrips anybody else involved in the movie, although he too lacks a particularly interesting character to make you care more about the gang’s plan to rob his casino blind.

Overall, Ocean’s Thirteen is a bit of a forgettable edition in the series. There’s nothing particularly terrible about it, but there’s nothing that really makes it stand out. It’s a bunch of A-listers who rob a casino, and that’s about it. So, that’s why I’m giving Ocean’s Thirteen a 6.8.