Oceans 12

Oceans Twelve begins with the gang themselves being woken up to the fact that the guy they robbed from (played again by Garcia) has tracked them all down and wants his lucre back within two weeks. To ensure the point is driven home, he proceeds to catch up with each one in turn and demand his money be returned (yawn moment). The gang are in a spot of bother, since they've spent most of the dosh, and no one seems to come up with the ideal solution ie. to quietly bump him off - which is convenient because instead of course they have to choose the more complicated solution - find a way to do another heist to make the money back.

Adding to the spice, is eye candy Catherine Zeta-Jones as an Interpol agent with the hots for Brad Pitt, and thankfully, Vincent Cassel, playing an agile thief out to show the boys how its done. Cassel arrives around the halfway mark and makes a considerable difference playing a character with arrogant banter and extravagant self-belief. Other plus marks for the fact that in this story, more things go wrong than in the first movie - which is always more fun. In fact the second half improves immeasurably after what is arguably a fairly laboured first hour.

Its slick, polished, star-studded and takes in a glittering array of locations and it just about passes muster giving you a reasonable two hours of entertainment. There's something inherently lazy about Ocean's Twelve, mostly it can be found in the plot and the writing. It sort of wants to say : look here's a whole stream of stars, we're back to the kind of crime caper plot you loved in the first one so I'm sure you'll find it all very entertaining. There may not be an Oceans 13, and getting a cast like this assembled is something of a feat in itself, so perhaps for that reason if no other, you might fancy giving 12 a go. It does supply two hours of reasonable entertainment and if anything is more lively than the first merely because things don't always go as planned.

Matt Arnoldi