"Hip! Heoo! 'Eyy! Soo Kewl!" That's the subtext of pretty much every line in "Ocean's Thirteen," and it can get rather annoying at times. Otherwise, this thing has moments that keep it worthy. Clooney and Pitt are missing their broads in this one, and who cares?

Nevertheless, since Julia Roberts and Catherine Zata-Jones' absence could be easily written out and dismissed with a line like Clooney's opening "It's not their fight," the flick deals with the lack of ladies organically with a consistent dialogue between our slicko heroes about relationships, which lets us know they're missing their women and leads up to a shared TV viewing that may be the best scene in the movie. Unlike the pathetically limp dick with Christmas lights on it that was "Ocean's Twelve," where we all were treated to two hours of watching movie stars wink at one another over how they're movie stars, "Thirteen" delivers not the (yes, slick) one-two that "Ocean's Eleven" managed, but indeed a worthy sequel.
 
When Elliot Gould's casino owner character (forgot the name, sue me, this ain't the LA Times) gets screwed over in a partnership with the evil Banks (a perfectly placed Al Pacino) and has a heart attack that almost kills him, Danny Ocean and the gang team up to take down Banks' new hotel/casino before its grand opening. While they manage to give everybody something cool to do, Matt Damon's Linus and the Mormon brothers (Casey Affleck and Scott Caan as yet again the best characters in the lot) are the only ones who really end up being much fun to watch. Everyone else kind of got the role of "Okay, well, this is my part in the big scam, so watch me do my thing because it's my turn to have screen time." The saddest example is when Don Cheadle (in a stunt motorcyclist costume shown on the preview) has to be all wacky to distract Al Pacino from the computer screen behind him. While it technically serves the plot, one can't help but think "Hey man, that's Don Cheadle, and his character was pretty phucking funny in the first one, don't make him do this shit."
 
Filling in for the role of the hot chick is Ellen Barkin as Pacino's assistant. While she does it fine and looks bangable as ever at 52 (plastic shmastic, so what), it'd have been nice to let her be evil or something. As it plays out, she's just a perfectly decent human being with a sharkish job who ends up getting thrown off by Matt Damon's seduction (they add pheremones to the mix for it, which is funny I guess, but... eh, whatever). Eddie Izzard also steps in, although I'm still not sure what the hell he was needed for besides "Oh, hey,
we should probably make sure there are thirteen guys for the hell of it, I
think Eddie's interested."

The other new addiction to the "thirteen" is a surprise, and it's not some lame celebrity cameo, so I won't be a dick and spoil it just to entertain myself with your dorkish "thanks a LOT!" misery. All in all, to be honest, this outing doesn't match up to the actual coolness of the first one, seeing as how that time they were able to pull off a new feel and keep that bap-bap-bap dialogue doing without drawing attention to it, thus actually
being cool.

In this one, we already know that no one's gonna get hurt and everybody's gonna be fine in the end after the cool guys win, on top of the fact that the "cool" dialogue drags the plot down at times and makes one stand up (in spirit) in the theater and yell (in spirit) "GODAMMIT, THIS ISN'T HOW PEOPLE TALK!! THEY'RE JUST TRYING TO SOUND COOL!!! NNNNNOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!"

Whatever, it's a popcorn flick, which is why I wish it were twenty minutes shorter and they'd just killed off five of the eleven so we could have an emotional hook and not have to feel like we're doing a favor to the not-all-too-needed guys whenever we watch their scenes. In the end though, this ain't a bad flick. If it comes down to this or most of the other crap in the theater and someone has a gun to your head while saying "You're seeing a movie today or I'm gonna blow your motherphucking brains onto that 'Nancy Drew' poster," just check it out, it does indeed have some very funny parts that I won't go into.
 
(three bongs)