I'm actually not super familiar with the Ocean's Franchise outside of seeing Oceans 11 on TV when I was younger. I never saw the sequels but from what I have heard they are decent and the fact that a trilogy was made implies that the oceans franchise was fairly popular. Fast forward to 2018 and we have Oceans 8 a sequel/reboot though mostly a sequel. Now I am definitely not in the target market for this but I enjoy a good heist movie and with the trailers being alright I thought there could be some potential here.
I will mention this movie has a had a bit of a backlash when it was announced though there was definitely not as much vitriol as with the recent Ghost Buster reboot. Thankfully this misguided anger seems to have faded as the release drew closer so hopefully that a good sign and these backlashes won't happen as much but it’s the internet and as much as I love it can be terrible.
Posters were a bit mixed for this film
On to the movie itself I thought it was pretty decent. There were some cool and interesting elements here and there but it was mostly by the book and there were a few things in the movie that I found a bit contrived. The best thing about the movie and what really elevated it was the cast, the main characters are interesting, charismatic, they play off one another really well and are easily the most interesting part of the movie. Sandra Bullock is pretty good as the lead, Cate Blanchett is really good as the 2IC and plays it real cool. Anne Hathaway plays a character that seems to be based on what people think she is like which is a bit weird but she ends up being pretty likable by the end of the movie. Sarah Paulson is pretty good and sort of acts as bit of the straight woman grounding Sandra and Cate's characters. Rihanna is kind of weird in this movie but she makes it work. Helena Bonham Carter is alright though her chacater fades from view as the movie goes on. Then there is Mindy Kaling and Awkwafina who I will say get a slightly short straw in the movie which is unfortunate but they do get to flex their comedy chops. Even James Corden is pretty decent and that is not something I was expecting his role is a bit weird but his interaction with the main cast is fun. Overall the cast is the best part of the movie especially how the interact and play off each other. Each of the 8 is really charismatic and compelling is just a bit too bad the movie falls apart on other front.
In terms of story and how the heist is structured its pretty basic. There are some cool elements here and there but also there are fair amount of times where you have suspend your disbelief as routine security/due diligence would probably have stopped some of the aspects of the heist. There is a fashion component to the movie which is not bad but there are certain instances that I found dwell on it a bit too much. The ending is also a bit mixed, for the most part its cool but there are a few aspects that kind of come out of nowhere. If you have seen the trailers there is this job within a job that’s referenced and while some aspects of it are clever other parts are a bit out of nowhere.
Ocean's 8 is a fairly average heist movie and there are some aspects of the story and certain details that work against it. However it has an amazing cast that elevate it from average to decent. The original director of the Oceans trilogy made Logan lucky last year which I though was a much better movie. But Its cool this exists, it's not the most amazing heist movie but it's fun enough and the cast really elevate it.
6.8/10
Disclosure: The company is work for has Roadshow Films as a client who are the distributors for Ocean's 8 (2017). I work on this account and worked on the campaign for this movie, I also saw this courtesy of Roadshow at a Roadshow screening before general release.