OCEAN'S TWELVE (2004) **1/2 I read a great interview where Brad Pitt said that Catherine Zeta-Jones arrived on set all full of herself and trying to get lines and generally monopolize things, until she realized that no one cared, settled down into the spirit of the thing and got to the serious business of drinking Brad Pitt, George Clooney, et al. under the table. So she's not the problem, she works well enough. The problem, I think, is that Steven Soderbergh kind of pulled the same thing (but without drinking them under the table, which is better, I guess). The music is good-maybe there's a little too much-but I don't believe that this particular film benefited from all of the slick technical flourishes. They arrive with too much regularity, and get in the way of the actors. There's an argument to be made that the plot (which doesn't hold up to much scrutiny) is more the problem--too linear even with all the flashbacks-- and doesn't give the actors enough room to improvise to any real extent. Or maybe the actors were just having too good of a time, and were just as surprised as me when it turned out that not so many really winning moments turned up on film. Matt Damon is involved in most of the better ones, and it has to be said that it's an entertaining film for all of its perceived faults. It's just that it's this film celebrating greatness (of a sort), and I don't question that it's a amazing cast, yet by the end there's an artistic veneer that smells like bubble gum holding too many plot lines together, all the while urging us to look at something else.
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