Ocean's Thirteen (2007)

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Al Pacino

Have I Seen It Before: Oh, sure. Come to think of it, a bunch of college friends in that summer after we all graduated went to see it when we couldn’t get in for Transformers (2007). Even though we ended up with the better choice, I still felt the need to admonish the people lined up* who managed to get tickets before us for being too obsessed with robots that are also cars.

Did I Like It: Even though we ended up with the better choice, it’s hard to avoid viewing this as the weakest of the Ocean’s movies. I so admired Ocean’s Twelve (2004) for conscientiously avoiding the trappings of the sublime first movie in the series. But here we are now, back to creating mischief in a casino. The fact that they’re not trying to actually steal anything, and simply want to bring ruin to the most odious and powerful casino magnate in Nevada (Pacino, who we’ve apparently never heard of before in two previous films) doesn’t change enough to make this demonstrably feel like a re-tread.

The cast has also reached critical mass, which always seemed inevitable. Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta-Jones disappear under cover a few quick lines of dialogue, as if their importance to the proceedings in the last two films was a mirage this whole time.

Now, that is a lot of complaining for a film that—for being the weakest entry in a trilogy—might very well be the best weakest entry of a trilogy ever made. The style is there. The fun is there. The misdirection is there. Asking for more might be a little greedy.

*God, it’s been so long since I’ve had to stand in line at a multiplex. I don’t miss it.

Ocean's Twelve (2004)

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Catherine Zeta-Jones

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure. There was probably a minute there right after W. won re-election that this was the big thing I was looking forward to in life.

Did I Like It: The fundamental truth is that your mileage with film is going to be directly related to how much you can tolerate a third act that largely hinges on Julia Roberts playing someone who is trying to impersonate Julia Roberts. I’m not going to say it will depend on whether you like that plot development, because if you’re reading this review, you’re a reasonable person and that plot element isn’t going to work for you.

Now, if you can get over the film’s one, glaring flaw, it might very well be the superlative entry in the series. The plot—when it isn’t descending (and admitting it is doing so) into b-minus sitcom territory—surprises. The mise-en-scéne is also frequently a delightful surprise. Everyone would have accepted or at least forgiven if this sequel was just a cynical re-hash of Ocean’s Eleven (2001) (don’t worry, we’ll get there) but this plays out like a holiday tentpole movie that has all the trappings of a light foreign film that most of the audience would never see in the first place.

This is not to say that all of what worked in the first film is abandoned. The chemistry among the thieves and between Pitt and Zeta-Jones and Clooney and Roberts all crackles, and the old-fashioned movie-star cool exuded here is never not a pleasure to watch. Just as the way Clooney orders a double whiskey in the first film lives in my head rent free for the rest of time, so too have I never seen a movie star live so comfortably in his own skin than Clooney does in his final confrontation with Toulour (Vincent Cassel). Every time I see that scene, I am convinced that if I could ever be as comfortable as that man is at that moment, all the problems of my life would simply drift away. It was apparently filmed at Clooney’s own villa, so he very nearly wet method with feeling right at home in his surroundings.

If only they didn’t have to have the whole Julia Roberts is Julia Roberts thing, it might have gone down as one of the all-time greats.

Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Cast: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt, Andy Garcia

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, sure.

Did I Like It: What is the goal of a movie like this? Soderbergh is at the helm, so one might think—without any other information—that something highbrow is in the offing. But no, this film has no ambition greater than the original Ocean’s 11 (1960). Be as cool as possible with as many stars as you can get in the same room at the same time.

Thus, the movie might be the most successful film Soderbergh has ever made.

The film refreshed the heist picture, injecting it with enough of the same action which made the Mission: Impossible franchise such an action staple. Come to think of it, that series didn’t really get its stuff together until several years after this movie was release. The influence probably goes the other way, in all honesty. I started out this review not needing more from the film than what it delivers at face value, but it probably has a lot more to answer for in the modern sense of what action movies have become.

But it’s the little things which have brought me back to the film over and over again. Has there ever been a better way to order a drink than when Clooney orders whiskey? He drops in on Tess (Julia Roberts, overpowered in the film, but I’ve never thought she had much charisma in anything, so it actually works out for the best) and orders a whiskey and a whiskey. I just... I don’t even like whiskey, and if I ever live to be half as cool as that, I’ll have used my time wisely.

Maybe more independently-minded purveyors of more complicated pieces of cinematic fare. Soderbergh here might be slumming it, but with his perfunctory work, he does far better than most filmmakers content to just work in popcorn fare. Maybe Ingmar Bergman should have made a Rock Hudson/Doris Day comedy. Sergei Eisentstein should have made a Chaplin comedy. Maybe Martin Scorsese

No, that shouldn’t happen. This movie’s still worth a look if you haven’t taken it in already, and it’s better than you probably remember.

Batman & Robin (1997)

Director: (trying to control my rage) Joel Schumacher

Cast: Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney, Chris O’Donnell, Uma Thurman

Have I Seen it Before: It’s a little shocking how many times I’ve actually said it.

Did I Like It: What kind of a question is it.

The text of this review appeared previously in a blog post entitled “What Schumacher’s Batman & Robin got right” published 05/22/2016.

WARNING: Heresy and rubber nipples lie ahead.

It's 3AM. My stomach is a churning miasma of unsettling notions. Naturally, my mind wanders to the work of Joel Schumacher. They go together like nausea and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze. Between the rubber nipples and cascade of puns that have become the stuff of legend, Schumaucher's contributions to the legend of the Caped Crusader are uniformally seen as the dark ages for the Dark Knight.

Here's the unfortunate secret that most bat-fans wouldn't dare admit, unless they're waiting for an industrial-sized dose of Peptol Bismol to kick in:

There are some things -- just a few, mind you -- that Joel Schumaucher not only got exactly right about Batman, but in fact did better than in any other Batman film to date.

I had to be wrong, so I went ahead and did the one thing I should never do: I re-watched the damned movie. Thankfully, the world is not completely upside down. Batman and Robin is just as bad, if not worse than you remember. The movie is congenitally unable to latch on to anything resembling a story arc for its characters. Every quip falls flat. It's kind of a miracle that even the law of averages wouldn't have given the movie some semblance of wit at some point in the proceedings.

Maybe it is all because the film was more of a toy commercial than it was a major motion picture. I tend to think it was because Schumaucher and company came to the conclusion (perhaps rightly so) that superhero films are for kids. Where they went off the tracks and never bothered to look back is determine that because these films are for the under-15 crowd, then it doesn't matter if the film sucks. It doesn't so much matter that the film is bright and campy and doesn't take itself too seriously. It's of far more importance that the film just sucks.

And yet, as I watched the movie again today, there they were, those few scant things that, while they hardly elevate the film in any measurable way, do show some semblance of awareness for what Batman is and can be.

1) The Batman does not kill.

Quick. Go watch every Batman movie, and then go read every Batman comic in existence. I'll wait. Done? Notice anything? The main theme people come away with is that in publishing, Bruce Wayne is bound by a particular code, springing from his origin at the end of Joe Chill's gun. Put simply: The Batman does not kill.

Except, no one bothered to inform the various screenwriters who have handled Warner Brothers' number one franchise. In Batman (1989) Bat-Keaton specifically tells Jack "I'm going to kill you," and he damned sure he puts a grapelling hook to good work to get the job done. 

In Batman Returns (1992) Bat-Keaton again dispatches Louie De Penguin with a carefully orchestrated wave of bats and a steep fall. Don't even get me started on the circus strongman that blew up real good for the capital crime of asking Batman to hit him. 

In Batman Forever (1995) Iceman-Batman flung Billy Dee Tommy Lee Jones from a tall height* even after Robin O'Donnell learned the important lesson of sparing one's enemies. 

In Batman Begins (2005), Bale-Bat does go out of his way to not directly kill Ra's-al-Gon-Jin, but he's pretty content to not save him, when he had plenty of time and resources to do so. 

In The Dark Knight (2008) Bale-Bat returns to fling Billy Dee Tommy Lee Eckhart from a tall height** after spending the entire movie not killing Ledjoker, despite literally everyone being fine with that possibility. 

In The Dark Knight Rises (2012) Batman drops a thermonuclear bomb into Gotham Harbor, thereby ensuring that the next seventeen generations of Gothamites can look forward to a litany of thyroid problems, if they're lucky. 

And finally, in Batman v Board of Education: Dawn of the McMuffin (2016), Batman's antipathy for guns didn't get translated to the other 807 plot points, because Batfleck is more than content to drop a few no-names in the pursuit of... Kryptonite? Barely a month out of seeing the movie, it already feels like a blur.  

Sense a pattern here? Batman and Robin is the only post-Adam West cinematic outing where Batman does not kill. One point for Schumaucher and company. Brings the score to 787,231 to 1, but at least it won't be a shut out. 

2) Who is Batman? 

By the time the fourth film in the series begins, everyone should know. It doesn't take much to find out. Alfred Pennyworth, Vicki Vale, Jack Napier, Selina Kyle, Oswald Cobblepot, Max Schreck, Dick Grayson, Edward Nygma, Harvey Dent, Chase Meridian, Ra's Al Ghul, Rachel Dawes, Lucius Fox, Coleman Reese, Talia al Ghul, Bane, Selina Kyle (again), Non-Robin, James Gordon, Clark Kent, and Diana Prince. Through the course of the Bat-films, all of these characters have figured out Bruce Wayne's secret. Here's the question: are there any other characters in the Batman universe? Outside of Bat-mite and Aunt Harriet, does anyone not know? 

There's only one film where Bruce Wayne's secret identity isn't sussed out by the villains or his girlfriend (or some mixture thereof). Which film is that? You guessed it. Batman and Robin. Yes, Barbara Wilson trips over the truth***, but I'm grading on a curve here. Give me a break.

3) At least they didn't run out of money.

I don't think anyone is going to get this far into this blog post and get the idea that I'm actually defending the core of this movie. It's a completely wrongheaded cluster of half-baked almost-ideas, packaged into a cheap sausage casing of '90s fashion. It's the cinematic equivalent of haggis, although saying that does a grave disservice to a sheep's stomach filled with food you wouldn't otherwise want to look at.

But at least they, you know, finished the movie.

It's not neccessarily high praise to say that Warner Brothers didn't just cut their losses and release a rough cut of the turd they had in the oven, but it does make it, fundamentally better than other fourth entries in superhero franchises. Superman IV is content to just use the same footage of Christopher Reeve flying towards the camera, and has a climax that confirms the long-heard suspicion that Mariel Hemingway can breathe in the vacuum of space. It's important to keep things in perspective.  

There are a lot of other examples from there. The villains' origins are -- if goofy -- more or less correct. The mythos isn't contorted to make it so that Mr. Freeze is the one who pulled the trigger on Thomas and Martha Wayne, even if that would've been one hell of a flashback. The Schumaucher movies also make Gotham City appears as if it may have the actual scope of a major metropolitan area, even if that city might be a maddening mish mash of Greek statues. In retrospect, Burton's movies look like they take place on a remaindered set from a dinner theater production of Our Town. The movie tries to be funny, which isn't the worst thing in the world. Batman can be funny. Adam West as Batman is funny. The problem is that the movie only tries, and forgets to bring the laughs. It is an important distinction. 

So, maybe Batman and Robin is the worst. Making movies is hard. We can't imagine what they might have been up against, and even if Schumaucher's myopia is to blame, there are far more serious sins in the world. Don't believe me? Go watch Superman IV: The Quest For Peace one more time.

* A lot of falling deaths in these movies, no?

** Sound familiar, no?

*** Again, it's not like a lot of deductive reasoning is applied; she uses an infinite amount of password tries to unlock an interactive CD-ROM.