Ocean's 8 Review

OK, I'm really confused as to how to stylize the title of this movie. The original 1960 movie in this franchise was simply titled "Ocean's 11." Because, you know, typical grammar rules are that you simply type the number for numbers larger than 10 and spell one numbers that are nine or less. The 2001 remake broke that grammar rule and chose to spell out the number in "Ocean's Eleven." They stuck to that tradition with "Ocean's Twelve" and "Ocean's Thirteen." Now this new movie I thought would be titled "Ocean's 8," which goes back to the original way of stylizing the title in this franchise by simply putting the number. Although with previously mentioned grammar rules, "Ocean's 8" is also wrong, so maybe they're sticking with tradition by doing opposite of the proper grammar rules? However, despite all the posters, advertising, trailers, etc. calling this "Ocean's 8," the actual opening and closing title card during the movie itself stylized the movie "Ocean's Eight." So now what do I say? "Ocean's 8" or "Ocean's Eight"? I don't know what to do. From here on out, I think I'll just stick to "Ocean's 8" because that requires less keys to press on my keyboard. If you want to jump into this debate, though, feel free to do so because it's more interesting than anything in the actual movie.

So the Ocean's franchise. That's a funny story. I've now seen two of them. I was planning on doing a quick marathon just to make myself sound all educated, but I've not seen "Ocean's Twelve," "Ocean's Thirteen" or the original "Ocean's 11." Only the 2001 "Ocean's Eleven" remake and now the female reboot/sequel/remake titled "Ocean's 8." Yeah, I know the official word is that this is a sequel to the remake trilogy, although in the future it'll be really confusing trying to explain to someone why "Ocean's 8" comes after "Ocean's Eleven" and why the grammar in the titles are all backwards. But "Ocean's 8," in addition to being a sequel, also successfully reboots the franchise with a new cast and also has to be called a remake of "Ocean's Eleven" since the only thing differences between the two movies are that it's a female cast where they're stealing female things such as fancy jewelry. Outside that, same exact movie. Almost to a "t." And I found the whole experience to be extremely lazy, which is an absolute shame because we have a phenomenal cast who all relish in their individual roles, having a blast with the film, but the writers and director apparently had zero passion behind this project as they went for a lazily-written carbon copy of something better.

This means that we have to bring up the politics behind this project, which I was hoping that I wouldn't have to do. We're in a very progressive age where we're at least trying to give females more attention in movies, both in front of the camera and behind the camera. And I think this is an absolutely wonderful idea. But there's a right way and a wrong way to do this. The right way is to give females more lead roles and more directing opportunities. The wrong way is to lazily remake all the male-led movies by replacing them with females in order to satisfy a quota that we made female movies. This is where we have the female "Ghostbusters" remake, which is admittedly better than the internet thought it was going to be, but still spent way too much time regurgitating all the sexist jokes and stereotypes of the past, but reversing them to shaming all the males, and not enough time making a clever, fun "Ghostbusters" movie as it was a bit run of the mill. Now we add the female Ocean's movie. Which could've been fun. But instead feels like the writers and director felt obligated to make more female-led movies, so they regurgitated the script for "Ocean's Eleven," but replaced all the males with females just for the sake of claiming they have a female-led Ocean's movie.

It's been over 10 years since we've done one of these Ocean's movies. If someone in Hollywood had a genius idea of bringing this franchise back with a fresh cast of characters and a fresh heist to pull off, I would've been all down for this. And that's what I thought we were getting. A fun, unique heist film with a star-studded cast of ladies having a blast pulling off a unique heist. And I was excited. So I re-watched "Ocean's Eleven" in preparation, then went into "Ocean's 8" the next day and was shocked to see the same exact movie. A lazy, politically correct Ocean's movie made to fill a quota and hopefully cash in on a popular trend. But let's take a step back real quick. "Ocean's Eleven." I know some people that will claim that this movie is a classic and one of the best movies ever made. If that is you, I'm sorry. You might want to turn away because I might hurt your feelings. It's not a masterpiece. It's never blown my mind. But what it is, is a really fun, simple heist film that's the golden standard of heist films. There's been heist films before and after this movie in 2001, but "Ocean's Eleven" is now the textbook example of exactly how to do a heist film. It's a lot fun. And I think it's just fine to have a movie that's simply a lot of fun, but is not anything masterfully special.

Again, I haven't seen the other three, but I hear "Twelve" isn't worth watching and that "Thirteen" is enjoyable, but not close to the level of "Eleven." And I hear very mixed things about the original "Ocean's 11," most people agreeing that the remake was an improvement and a lot of people not even realizing that there is a 1960 version. If you have "Ocean's Eleven" in your mind, quickly let me go over "Ocean's 8," without spoilers, of course. Even though you already know how it's going to end simply because it's a heist film. We start with Debbie Ocean, played by Sandra Bullock, getting out of prison. She gives a speech to the parole board, I think, about how much she's changed and is nothing like her family, who are all known for their con-artist ways. Yet she gets out and immediately goes to Lou, Cate Blanchett's character, and describes her plan of pulling off an impossible heist that'll net them upwards of $160 million. But they need a team to pull it off, which in this case is seven of them. So we spend the first major portion of this movie recruiting the perfect team, all of whom are easily convinced and before we know it we are in the planning phase where they are going to pull off the perfect heist without any troubles, despite it being impossible to do.

Sound familiar? Anytime we get any drama, it just so happens to be the exact same type of drama as "Ocean's Eleven" wherein Debbie Ocean has secret motivation outside pulling off a perfect heist that Cate Blanchett isn't perfectly comfortable with, just like Danny Ocean and Brad Bitt's character in "Eleven." Said conversation had me screaming at the film inside of me because certain lines of dialogue were almost completely plucked straight from "Eleven." What made this partially acceptable was the cast. There's a lot of fingers to point around here, but none of them will be pointed at any cast member, which included Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Rihanna and Helena Bonham Carter, in addition to the previously mentioned Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett. Even though the movie and the heist itself was as by-the-numbers as it could get, all these ladies were having a blast. Even Rihanna did a great job, which was surprising. Personally my favorite lady in the movie was Anne Hathaway, who plays the famous actress in the movie who is modeling the diamond necklace that they are stealing. I probably shouldn't say much about why she is so awesome, but needless to say she is having the most fun.

When we get to the heist itself, I did find myself having a lot of fun with the heist, mostly because all the ladies were having a blast playing their individual roles in the heist. There is a few minor surprises that veer away from "Eleven" that I won't spoil, but the heist itself is sadly cut short a bit in order to fit room for the biggest surprise of the movie, a fourth act following our three-act structure, which unfortunately derailed any fun I was having during the moments of the heist itself. I walked out of the movie not completely offended at what was in front of me, but also really annoyed with the laziness of the movie itself. Granted, doing a heist film in 2018 is a bit of a tricky endeavor because it's hard to bring something completely new to the table that hasn't been done before. But I would've liked them to at least try, which it didn't appear like they did. "Logan Lucky" from last year proved that you still can do something fresh in the heist genre, so it's no excuse. Come up with something fresh or leave the ideas in the drawing room. As far as my final score goes, based on everything I've said, it may seem like I'm being a bit forgiving because I could go real low with this, but the ladies themselves owned this movie despite everything, so I'm giving "Ocean's 8" a 6/10.