I love a good heist movie. Although they are almost always completely implausible, I really enjoy watching how creative a writer can be in making the ludicrous seem fairly believable. Some of my favorites include Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Inside Man, Baby Driver (my favorite movie of last year), Heat, The Italian Job (both versions), The Bank Job and of course Ocean's Eleven and Ocean's Thirteen (Ocean's Twelve was horrendous. I felt Oceans Thirteen was made as an apology for wasting my time).
Therefore, as soon as I saw the ads for Ocean's 8, I was immediately interested. How could a heist movie written by Gary Ross who brought us Big and Pleasantville that features so many talented and funny actresses (and Rhianna for some reason) not be entertaining?
That is a great cast. How could it go wrong?
I'll tell you how. Make the heist so ridiculous, cliche, overly complicated (yet miraculously easy to execute) that it is an afterthought rather than the driving force of the movie. That is what happened.
Ocean's 8 is terrible.
Let's get this out of the way. I was clearly not a member of the target demographic for this movie. I am a man in his late 40s. I think the intended demographic was women. And I think that is a complete insult. I know plenty of woman who enjoy intelligent and creative heist movies. I happen to be married to one. This is not even close to that. From my point of view, the heist was a silly excuse to get this group of actresses together so they could wear fancy dresses, talk about jewelry and laugh about the cameos sprinkled throughout the movie.
For the record, I don't get hung up on male or female characters at all. I am not one of the people who was angry with Star Wars because they included too many powerful women. I don't care if a character is male or female... as long as they are compelling. For example, I thought the female characters in Black Panther stole the show and made the movie. So believe me, this criticism is not based on the gender of those performing the heist.
This is how bored I was the entire time.
For some of the audience, I would imagine the performances, the cameos and some cute banter was enough to make this an enjoyable movie experience. But not for me. I was expecting this to be a heist movie. Therefore, for me, this movie was an utter failure.
A good heist movie includes a brilliant and creative plan, the execution (usually with complications), and perhaps some reveal of how something unexpected occurred or that the audience was unaware of. This movie had NONE of that (except one small fun reveal). The plan is overly complicated yet cliche and silly. If you have seen the ads, then you know the team wants to steal diamonds. There were at least two occasions when the team could have stolen the necklace with no fuss at all. At these points I actually threw my hands up and muttered, "Why don't they just take the freaking diamonds right now?"
And speaking of the team... in Ocean's Eleven you understood exactly why everyone joined the team and were willing to risk going to prison. You also understood their skill set and how they were able to be in the right place at the right time. There are at least two members of Ocean's 8 who I have no idea why they would join the team. Their motivations made absolutely no sense. That wasn't even including a third member who had two small children at home who relied on her. If you want me to like a character, I have an idea, don't show her as being so selfish that she would risk going to prison and abandoning her children... for no plausible reason aside from a desire to have fun.
If anyone can explain why each one of these people is on the team, I would really appreciate it. The writer clearly couldn't do it.
In addition to not understanding why everyone was on the team, I also have no idea how they all happened to get the perfect jobs working for companies that would allow them to pull off their ludicrous and overly complicated heist. I get that there needs to be a certain suspension of disbelief in order to enjoy many heist movies, but this was just insulting.
So the heist was terrible. There was still a chance that the movie wouldn't be a complete waste of time. After all this movie was similar to a terrible knockoff of Ocean's Eleven. Part of Ocean's Eleven's charm was the quick and witty banter, fast and interesting camera shots and changes, excellent editing, and great use of music.
Ocean's 8 only got one of those right. The movie seems a step too slow. While Ocean's Eleven had rapid moving shots of different pieces of the plan as it was formulated and carried out, this movie tries to do it... but just one beat too slow. Although the casting of Sandra Bullock doing a George Clooney impersonation to Cate Blanchett's attempt to capture the "cool" of Brad Pitt actually didn't bother me, the dialogue did. It was boring. The music was really cool though.
I like Brad Pitt. I like Cate Blanchett. But I really don't need to see either one impersonating the other. (Do not get excited. Brad Pitt is not in this movie.)
Ocean's 8 was a complete waste of my time. At least horrible movies like Red Sparrow and Alien:Covenant inspired me to go on some fun rants so I actually got something out of those. This one doesn't even deserve the energy and passion it would take to rant. I just want to forget it.
Mission accomplished.
What was I talking about?
Ah nothing important.
Geeky Guy's Movie Guide
Number of times I fell asleep: 0
Number of eye rolls: 6 (Why would you join the team? How was that so easy? Why did you over-complicate things before easily accomplishing them? Why didn't I leave?)
Number of face palms: 5 (Just take the freaking necklace!)
Number of times I went to the bathroom out of sheer boredom: 0 (I actually thought about walking out about 30 minutes in. I should have.)
Number of times I checked steemit: 0 (I wish I would have.)
Full price/Matinee/Rental/Free/Not worth the time: Not worth the time.