It may seem like a weird order but I watched Ocean’s Eight first before any of the original movies, so what did I think going back to see the originals for the first time?

Ocean’s Eleven follows Danny Ocean, played by George Clooney, who devises a team of 11 people to carry out a vault heist on an infamous vault that has over $160 million worth of cash in it, and it also happens to be the vault that is owned by Danny‘s ex wife’s new beau.

I thought this movie was really enjoyable once we got to the actual heist part of it. I felt a lot of the time was spent explaining who these characters were and their back stories and that got a bit long winded. In Ocean’s Eight I don’t remember that much time being put towards each of these characters, it was very quick and snappy, whereas this one spent a lot more time and really I didn’t care that much. There were certain people in Danny’s 11 that I didn’t even realise were there because they weren’t the big-name stars like Matt Damon and Brad Pitt.

While I love heist movies and I did enjoy this one as well I did find that exposition at the start just went on for too long and I really could’ve done without it. I really just wanted to get to the meat and potatoes of the actual excitement that was the heist and how we were going to pull it off, especially as we only found out certain things at the end of the movie, which really made you excited for it and want to know what actually happened. I didn’t care too much for the ex-wife storyline, of course it gave it a bit more initiative to do well with the heist and really get his revenge, but I don’t see Danny Ocean as that much of a good character and so his ex-wife going back to him wasn’t a plot point that I invested too much time into because it was not a plot point that I enjoyed.

Maybe it’s being a woman or maybe it’s how long I waited to watch this movie or maybe it’s my generational outlook being a very social media, fashion conscious consumer, but I preferred Ocean’s Eight over this film. Of course you have the powerful feminism that these women come together in doing this incredible heist, you have the Met Gala which is a huge event in my life and something I love watching every year, and you have the excitement of it all too where everything was so quick and concise that in some ways I’d much rather watch that film again then this one because I just didn’t connect to it as much.

I feel part of the issue is they bought in such big names as Brad Pitt, George Clooney, and Matt Damon that that’s what they were cashing in on and that’s what they were banking on to get people to watch this movie and to enjoy it. I’m sure it worked back in the day when they were the hottest celebrities around but watching it now and knowing what they’ve become I just don’t think I’d run back to watch it any time soon, despite my love of heist movies.

I will of course watch the sequels to see if they are any better or worse than this film and I’m glad this film came about so we can have such great spin-offs as Ocean’s Eight but, while I can see why it’s a classic and why people love it, unfortunately it wasn’t a film for me.

What do you think of Ocean’s Eleven?

Until next time.

Published by shonaharding

Media graduate with a passion for reviewing film and TV. View all posts by shonaharding