Ocean's Trilogy - 4K Blu-ray Review

[Michael Scott]

Ocean's Trilogy



Movie:
4K Video:
Video:
Audio:
Extras:
Final Score:


WARNING: THE SCORES ABOVE ARE A COMBINED SCORE FROM ALL 3 FILMS, THE INDIVIDUAL SCORES ARE CONTAINED BELOW IN THE INDIVIDUAL SECTIONS OF THE REVIEW


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Movie
Ocean's Eleven:
Heist movies have been around since the dawn of film, and played a large role in crafting a myriad of adventure films ranging from The Great Train Robbery, to well...Ocean’s 11. And while most remakes of classic films tend to fail more often than succeed, Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven managed to be probably the single best heist film of the last 30 years, and one of my favorite heist films of all time. It was snappy, witty, and used just enough misdirection to keep you guessing till the very end (even if you know MOST of the events happening). Not to mention starring an ensemble cast of everyone who was anybody in Hollywood around the turn of the century.

Danny Ocean (George Clooney) Is fresh out of jail for a con job that he actually get caught for (the parole hearing lightly jokes at him being implicated in a dozen more jobs, but never charged) and instead of turning over a new leaf is looking at pulling off the biggest heist in criminal history. Instead of rolling over a few banks or some rich widows, Danny has his eyes set on a massive prize, but one shrouded in risk. Knocking over not one, not two, but THREE Vegas casinos run by one Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia).

To do the job right he needs a team of 10 crooks, thieves and swindlers to pull off such a massive endeavor. Which means he needs his right hand man Rusty (Brad Pitt), Smart mouthed Casino expert Frank Catton (Bernie Mac), a pair of wheelman brothers by the name of Turk and Virgil (Scott Caan and Casey Affleck), old timer Saul (Carl Reiner), Security expert Livingston Dell (Eddie Jemison), a Chinese contortionist named Yen (Shaobo Qin), and rookie pick pocket Linus (Matt Damon). However, the job itself is FAAAAR from easy. The Casinos are lorded over by Terry Benedict himself, and Mr. Benedict went ALLL out with the security measures. Which means the plan has to be bold, meticulous, and well timed to fool a million cameras, a paranoid business owner, and of course their own dumb luck.

Soderbergh was absolutely on fire with Ocean’s Eleven. The film is fast paced, the dialog is fantastic between the cast, and everything moves at such a quick pace it’s hard to let the more unrealistic portions of the film really sink home. Sure, the idea is crazy, and the idea that a plan like this can go off without a hitch is pretty ridiculous, but the film simply oozes cool and suave debonair to the point that you don’t really CARE about those silly little details. Plus when you throw in Julia Roberts as the little mid film twist things get really interesting.

Simply put, Ocean’s Eleven is a text book example of a high stakes heist movie done correctly. The Cast, the crew, the plot, and visuals just WORK. You want loathe Terry Benedict so much that you’re cheering for Danny and the boys to pull this off, and even though you KNOW for a fact that it’s going to turn out the way you think it will, the audience is still invested in seeing just HOW it’s all done.

Ocean's Twelve:
After the massive box office success that was 2001’s Ocean’s Eleven remake, Soderbergh was most certainly called on to make a sequel nearly instantaneously. Thus 3 years later Ocean’s Twelve comes out, only to fizzle pretty badly at the box office (comparatively, as it made almost $100,000,000 less than it’s predecessor on a higher budget). Personally I couldn’t remember almost anything of the plot of the film going into this review and I was racking my head why I couldn’t really recall anything. The original is a classic, I remember the 3rd film, and I still have the taint of Ocean’s 8 burned into my memory to this day, but some odd reason I wasn’t recalling the 2nd film. Well, after watching the movie I now understand why. Coming hot on the heels of the 1st film, Ocean’s Twelve manages to pull off something amazing. It just so happens to be the most rote and bland film of the entire franchise, and as a result is nearly completely forgettable.

The film picks up 3 years after Danny Ocean (George Clooney) stole $163 million dollars from Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia), as well as his ex wife Tess (Julia Roberts) back from the casino owner as well. Just as Benedict promised, he has finally hunted down every single member of the Ocean’s 11 crew and given them an ultimatum. Pay him back all $163 million PLUS some nasty interest, or he would kill each and every one of them.

The gang gets back together and pools the money they have left from the millions stolen, but it’s not nearly enough and they’re dead broke beyond that. Rusty drained all of his money into a series of hotels, Danny has most off his, but the rest has been squandered away on frivolous stuff by all the crew. Deciding that the United States is too hot for them right now due to the fact that they’re the most wanted thieves in U.S. history at the moment, Danny and Rusty turn their gaze toward Europe. There they can pull off a massive artifact heist, get enough money to pay back Benedict, and get back to their lives.

Only problem is, there’s more than one thief at play. Turns out the famous French thief known as the Night Fox (Vincent Cassel) also has his eyes on the same prize as the Danny’s crew. And to make matters worse, he wants to make a game out of who is the best thief. Add in the fact that Rusty’s ex girlfriend, Detective Isabel Laihiri (Catherine Zeta-Jones) catches wind of their plot, and soon it’s a race of “thief against thief against time” for the artifact.

The film plays the same basic premise of the first movie, but adds in ton of side stories and a whole mess of double backs and secrets by the director to the point of everything becoming a bit of a muddle mess. On one hand we have Detective Laihiri closing in on everyone and the sexual tension between her and Rusty, then there’s the addition of Tess to the team for a last minute con (thus going from 11 to 12 members), and by the time we add in Vincent Cassel’s Night Fox things have gotten over bloated. To make matters even worse, there’s ANOTHER sub plot with an even more famous thief who turns out to be the long lost father of the Detective.

On one hand I sort of like the idea of Ocean’s Twelve. The idea of two master thieves is incredibly fun, and has been done perfectly in films like The Pink Panther etc. The only thing is that Soderbergh decides to go full bore “European” with the vibe, incorporating filming techniques of Fritz Lang and William Friedkin 1970s films to the point that it lost the feel and tone of the original. But the biggest frustration comes from the fact that Soderbergh uses the entire film as a decoy, unveiling at the end that everything that went on wasn’t what REALLY went on, and the entire thing was a decoy while our characters did something completely different behind the scenes. Ocean’s Eleven mildly played with that sort of misdirection 3 years prior, but it was very minimal and blended in seamlessly with the rest of the story. Here it feels like the entire store was simply a blind while he info dumped on us everything that ACTUALLY happened in the last 10 minutes. It feels a bit cheap and sort of weakens the stakes of everything that happened earlier.

There are some positives though. The cast are still firing on all 4 cylinders, and the whole “Julia Roberts and Bruce Willis” meta gag was hilarious. Having Tess play Julia Roberts in real life was actually pretty clever, especially since the whole meta pop culture phenom hadn’t really hit mainstream just yet. So at that point in time it actually came across as clever.

Ocean's Thirteen:
Right cue, Warner Brothers decided after the mediocre reception to Ocean’s Twelve it wold make a final film in the series (until the all female spin-off) going back to the Casino roots of the whole thing. Bringing back everyone by Catherine Zeta-Jones and Julia Roberts, Soderbergh created much of the same vibe as the first film, while changing up the pace a bit by having them play it all as a sabotage instead of heist. Clever? I thought so, and so did the audience as it became the 2nd most successful film of the entire franchise.

Fresh off the boat from their European encounter with crime, the crew are back in the United States and living their best lives. However, the crew gets called back together when their financial backer Reuben (Elliott Gould) gets swindled in his enterprise to open a brand new Casino. Turns out his partner, Will Bank (Al Pacino) screwed him over big time, leaving Reuben with a pittance pay out, and a heart attack that leaves the poor guy in bed with nothing left to live for. Naturally Danny Ocean (George Clooney) and Rusty (Brad Pitt) aren’t happy about it, and devise a plan to bring some pain and suffering to Willy Bank and his over inflated ego.

Turns out that Willy has sort of sold his soul to some rich men himself, and his reputation is on the line if he doesn’t deliver a hugely successful opening quarter for them. So, to make sure he doesn’t exactly attain that goal, Danny and his band of nerdowells do everything they can to sabotage the Casino’s grand opening with every dirty trick in the book. That means putting on disguises, rigging the games in the customer’s favor, and genuinely becoming a thorn in the side of the sleazebag who put their friend in a coma.

Ocean’s Thirteen may not be perfect, but it did what Twelve couldn’t do. It put the fun back into the caper game. Everyone is having a blast in their oles, with Clooney hamming it up as the overly suave and debonair Danny Ocean, and Eddie Izzard takes on a bigger role as the tech genius Roman. Also, lets face it. Who is better at playing a mob boss sleaze bag better than Al Pacino? The man grew up in the gangster film era and he can fall back into the role without even breaking a sweat. Plus the heists and rigging of the games are a load of fun. The film has a distinctly more comedic vibe than its predecessors, but being that the crew are intent on causing mischief, it actually fits in better than I thought it would. Sure, there’s plenty of serious moments, but everyone involved is just having a ball causing mayhem, and the humor coincides with that mischief




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for some language and sexual content / Rated PG-13 for language / Rated PG-13 for brief sensuality




Video:

Ocean's Eleven:
It’s been a loooooooooooooooooong time coming, but we finally have a new video encode for the Ocean’s trilogy. Originally released back in 2008 during the format war, Warner was forced to compress their Blu-ray down with an aging master and onto a 25 gigabyte disc to accommodate HD-DVD’s lower file size capabilities. As such its video and audio scores were NOT that great. However, this is an entirely different beast altogether, as Warner has gone back for a new master, and finally given the film the treatment it deserves.

Unlike James Cameron, Steven Soderbergh’s recently released trilogy is unmolested and given an absolutely STUNNING new transfer (much like Contagion was a few weeks back) that is crisp, clean and vibrant in 2160p. Right off the bat comparing the opening scenes to the Blu-ray is like watching DVD to Blu-ray in terms of the quality leap. Gone is the smeared details, colors are warm and vibrant, and I was shocked to see just how big of an improvement this new master (and of course the higher resolution and HDR...no Dolby Vision) provides. Soderbergh films are always at least slightly stylized, and no matter how good you get as mastering, there will always be that orange, yellow and lightly green hues that Steven applies to many of his films. However, it’s more judicious and toned down in the Ocean’s trilogy thanks to Soderbergh wanting the film to look more mainstream. Fine details inside and outside the casino are absolutely stunning, and the HDR application really adds depth and pop to the ambers and maroon’s inside said casino. Black levels are awesome, especially when the gang breaks into the vault with neon green NODS flickering. There is some natural softness to certain scenes that isn’t going away, but that is very typical of Soderbergh and his grading, so I’d rack that more up to stylistic choices rather than a bad encode. Artifacting is near nonexistent, and at the end of the day this is a MASSIVE upgrade over the 2008 Blu-ray that we’ve suffered with for 16 years.

Ocean's Twelve:
Much like the first film, Ocean’s Twelve is given a huge HUGE face lift in the form of a brand new 4K remaster and a huge increase in the bitrate thanks to no need to cater to HD-DVD’s limited space back in the format war years. The got the same hands on treatment from Soderbergh that Ocean’s Eleven did, and the end result looks generally fantastic. The film is heavily graded in Steven Soderbergh fashion, with the heavy yellow and amber hues that he’s known for. But instead of the green and blue tinges of the first film it leans much more heavily Sepia all around, with a few splashes of “day for night shot photography” blue, and the typical Soderbergh yellows. I did notice massive improvements on textures and details all around, but the film still has that heavily blown out look in certain scenes, giving the faces and skin tones a very white blanched look. Judging by my old Blu-ray and this new remaster I’m concluding that it was something that Soderbergh did intentionally, or was simply an artifact of the filming style, because it’s present in the Blu-ray, the DVD and this new remaster as well. All in all, a great looking disc.

Ocean's Thirteen:
Honestly, despite having a bit of an over the top color grading, Ocean’s Thirteen probably looks the best of the trilogy. The film is given an EXTREMELY intense red/orange push to everything, complete with bronzed skin tones, really rich red interiors on the Casino, and an almost hellish glow to everything. Soderbergh loves to go big or go home with his grading, and Thirteen is probably the most vivid and unique of the trilogy. Dine details are excellent all around, although I did notice some weird issues with smooth skins and sort of waxy looking details in the opening 15 minutes (especially during the face off between Rueben and Willy Bank), but that fades pretty quickly to a really clean look. There’s a nice layer of film grain over the entire production that screams film stock, and while I did notice some crushed blacks here and there, this is an exquisite (and rather unique) looking 4K UHD disc.






Audio:

Ocean's Eleven:
Right along for the ride is an upgrade over the aging 5.1 Dolby Digital Lossy track that the HD-DVD and original Blu-ray foisted on us a decade and a half ago. Comparing the two side by side you get a distinct boost in both volume and depth, as the sound stage feels thick and “full” for once. The thinness of the lossy Dolby Digital track is gone, and I noticed that I could actually pick up more surround details, and the jazzy score really fills out a good bit. Dialog is spot on and crystal clear, but I did notice that the film doesn’t have as much bass as I would have liked. To be fair, the Blu-ray, the DVD and (to my aging memory) the theatrical experience wasn’t massively bassy either. Most of the film it simply adds some mild weight to the score, but on certain occasions (such as the vault doors being blown, the casino being demolished, or gunshots as the van tires are being blown) do definitely jump out at you. Part of me wanted to give the audio a 4.5/5 as well, but the fact that the film’s sound design sort of skimped on the bass (there were scenes such as the twins car race, or the rumbling of the swat van that really felt like there should have been some bass when it wasn’t really there) made me knock off half a star to 4/5 (although it’s certainly a heap better than the lossy Blu-ray track).

Ocean's Twelve:
I gave the first film a good score for the audio, but the second film kicks things up a notch, especially in the bass department. Dialog is crisp and clear as usual (albeit some of the accents are a bit wonky) and surrounds are incredibly active. Supposedly this new audio remix (yes it’s a remix not simply using the original master than the lossy DD 5.1 mix used) was supervised by original sound editor Jerry Blake, and it is SO much more than the mediocre lossy track we’ve had for years. Bass is tight and punchy, and adds a good bit of weight during the heist scenes. It still is not THE most bassy movie out there, but according to what I could ascertain from interviews and some blog posts by Jerry Blake, it was never really intended to be so. Overall this is a huge upgrade over the anemic 5.1 Dolby Digital track of old and well worth the price of admission.

Ocean's Thirteen:
Again, like the video, I feel that this is the best audio mix of the trilogy. As is the usual, the jazz inspired score fills the entire sound stage and the hustle and bustle of the Casino floor really keep the listener pinned in the middle of the room. Bass is huge and rather large this go around, with the earthquake and the helicopter scenes really standing out as some nice pant shakers. Once again the film likes to stay in the front of the room for most of the time, but when things get busy, or action pops off, then it gets real aggressive, real quick.





Extras:

Ocean's Eleven
• Audio Commentary with director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter Ted Griffin
• Audio Commentary with actors Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, and Brad Pitt
• Are You In or Out?: The Making of Ocean's Eleven (
• Pros and Cons: Inside Ocean's Outfit
• The Style of Steal
• The Look of the Con
• Original Ocean's, Original Cool

Ocean's Twelve
• Audio Commentary with director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriter George Nolfi
• Ready, Jet Set, Go: The Making of Ocean's Twelve
• HBO First Look: Twelve is the New Eleven
• Deleted Scenes

Ocean's Thirteen
• Audio Commentary with director Steven Soderbergh and writers Brian Koppelman & David Levin
• Third's a Charm: The Making of Ocean's Thirteen
• Ahab with a Piggyback: The Means & Machines of Ocean's
• Jerry Weintraub Walk and Talk
• Masters of the Heist
• Deleted Scenes

Final Score: ​

The entire Ocean’s Trilogy is a fun watch, despite the 2nd movie being a bit of a comparative slog. Warner has packed everything together in a single 3 disc Amaray case with digital code (although, unlike the single steelbook releases the it’s one code for all 3 movies instead of a single code for each movie) that acts as the budget way to get all 3 films, vs. the more heavily priced and premium packaging that comes with the individual steelbooks. If you’re wanting the singles, the steelbooks are the way to go, but this boxset is much more attractively priced and all you’re giving up is the heavy duty collector’s packaging. Each option is perfectly valid as they all contain identical discs with identical extras. Either option you choose, it’s a solid set with a MUCH needed audio/video upgrade for all three films.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Bernie Mac, Don Cheadle, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Al Pacino
Directed by: Steven Soderbergy
Written by: George Clayton Johnson, Jack Golden Russell, Harry Brown / George Clayton Johnson, Jack Golden Russell, George Nolfi / George Clayton Johnson, Brian Koppelman, David Levien
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1 HEVC (all 3)
Audio:English: DTS-HD MA 5.1, French (Canadian), French, German, Italian, Spanish (Castilian), Czech, Japanese DD 5.1, Spanish (Latin) DD 2.0
Subtitles: English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Japanese, Spanish, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Swedish
Studio: Warner Brothers
Rated: PG-13 (all 3)
Runtime: 117 Minutes / 125 Minutes / 122 Minutes
Blu-ray Release Date: April 30th 2024

Recommendation: Good Set

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