With the disappointment that was Ocean’s Twelve over with, Ocean’s Thirteen surely can’t be as bad, right? Right?

Well, short answer; yeah… Yeah it can be as bad.

But, there are more redeemable parts in this one at least. First, we are back in Las Vegas! Which I think is where the Ocean’s movies belong. And, the set up for this heist is a lot more interesting. Ocean’s Twelve had a heist-off as the backbone, but ultimately didn’t matter at all. Ocean’s Thirteen is all about revenge. Getting back at a rival casino owner that screwed one of the Ocean’s team out of co-ownership in the newest, hottest casino on the strip. The set up is actually great and really puts some weight to the heist.

But, unfortunately, that’s about where the good stuff ends. I really like the set up and the setting, but everything else is… just whatever. The heist is really confusing in the beginning. Making the first 40 minutes of the movie almost unintelligible. There is just so much going on. The Ocean’s team is working on rigging every game in the casino, getting jobs at the tables in the casino, working (and staging a strike) in a Mexican factory making dice, pretending to be high rollers, sabotaging the room of the hotel reviewer staying there, and most importantly, making Matt Damon a sexual Adonis in order to seduce an assistant in one of the cringiest parts of the movie. Oh! I forgot another part. Drilling a God damn tunnel under the casino to simulate an earthquake in order to get a seismometer into the main office in the casino. Yeah, there is A LOT of stuff going on. But, luckily for the Ocean’s crew, nothing goes wrong at all! This is the only movie without a sort of twist in it. The crew plans out everything and everything goes perfectly (minus one part where they have to photoshop some photos mid-download as Don Cheadle dresses as an Evel Knievel rip-off). There are so many moving parts in this movie. As confusing as I’m sure that was to read, it’s even more confusing to watch. There is simply too much going on. Every single part of this heist is a little unbelievable and thank God for plot armor, because it really carries this team. The heist just does not seem possible. Ocean’s Eleven is great because everything seems somewhat possible. But Ocean’s Twelve and Thirteen just made me eyeroll as things just so happened to work out for them. They want me to believe that Danny Ocean is the greatest con-man of all time, but it’s really hard to believe that when most his heists rely completely on luck.

Not to mention that I don’t really know what the team is accomplishing? I know that they are rigging the machines and overriding a futuristic anti-cheat device. While the machine is down, they have three and a half minutes to win as much from the house as they can. Cool, I get that. They are robbing the house blind because not only are the Ocean’s team winning big, but everyone in the casino is winning big. Cool. But there is no way that the Ocean’s team wins the 500,000,000 they say they do in three minutes. You can’t even play three hands of poker in that time. There simply is no way that the team of thirteen is able to make that much money in that short of time. Also, since they evacuate the casino after the three and a half minutes is up, how did they even cash in their winnings? How did anyone? I guess, for me, the payoff just falls flat after all the extremely complex set up.

So, to wrap things up, Ocean’s Thirteen gets a 1.5 out of 4. Sure it is better than Ocean’s twelve, but not by much. There is a reason that this series went radio silent after this. The heists kept trying to outdo one another, but they started to get too big to stay believable. When a lot of the plot relies on suspending your believability and just hoping for luck, I don’t really care anymore I guess? The cast is AMAZING in these movies, and I feel that they just never capitalize on these amazing actors. This movie wants to be a sexy Matt Damon with giant fake nose, but in reality it’s just another set of fake diamonds. I’m glad to be done with the Ocean’s movies finally… Wait… What? There’s an Ocean’s Eight? Why, God? Why?