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Review

After the crushing failure of Solaris (a masterful, tragically misunderstood sci-fi fable that's quite worth a look, wethinks) and the lukewarm reception of the mostly improvised La-La Land tableau Full Frontal, Steven Soderbergh must've leapt at the chance to reunite with his hip Ocean's Eleven cronies for this breezily entertaining inter-continental follow-up. Yes, they're all back — from supreme cool cat Clooney as the gang's unflappable ringleader to über-slickster Brad Pitt as his smooth #2 guy; from Matt Damon and Julia Roberts (who both seize the chance to expand on their respective characters) to criminally underused supporting players Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Elliott Gould and Carl Reiner. Joining the cast are Catherine Zeta-Jones as an Interpol agent romantically linked with Pitt's character and Vincent Cassel as a suave, ultra-competitive French master thief. The wafer-thin pretense of a plot concerns the gang's hasty scramble to pay back the $168 Million they stole from casino boss Terry Benedict (Garcia, reprising his role as the de-facto bad guy), and this necessitates not merely one big score but several European jobs that find our sticky-fingered chums jetting off to some of the most scenic locations ever captured on film (Amsterdam, Paris, Italy, Sicily, Monaco, Bevery Hills ... and picturesque Illinois, USA). The brisk banter that made 2001's Ocean's Eleven such a snappy delight is again in abundance, and the spirited actors relish the opportunity to poke fun at their own celebrity super-egos (a clever blurring of the line between real-life and reel-life that pays off with one of the most uproarious instances of mistaken identity you're ever likely to see onscreen). Granted, this is all a big, sugary fluff of cinematic cotton candy, but it's held together by the considerable charms and camaraderie of its eminently likable cast and zooms along at a quicksilver pace.

 -- Steven D. Segal