I’m a pretty big fan of the remade “Ocean’s” films from the ’00s. (I’ve never seen the original from 1960.) They are fun, smart and have great chemistry with George Clooney and Brad Pitt firmly carrying them. So although the trailers did not impress me, I was still excited to see “Ocean’s 8.”
The all-female cast here is really solid: Sandra Bullock, Rihanna, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway … it really is an all-star cast. The problem is that I felt no chemistry at all. Bullock can clearly carry a movie, but I can’t get into her character here.
Without going into spoilers, the star here is Hathaway once she interacts with the group, but there’s not enough of it. Also, at the risk of sounding sexist, I don’t think the all-female thing works for me. It feels too forced. There is even a point in the film when it is addressed and someone says “Only women this time.” I wonder what would happen if that line was used in the previous versions with mostly males?
After all that, the main problem is that the whole thing is laid out too cleanly. Past “Ocean’s” movies have fun reveals at the end of the heist as the viewer learns how it was accomplished, or that what we saw wasn’t what we thought we saw. Here though, we just get a play-by-play for the most part.
Overall, “Ocean’s 8” is fine. It borders on a 3 or 3.5, but I’ll give it a 3.5 because I enjoy heist films.