Dave and Greg are BACK with yet another Ocean’s movie…Ocean’s 8! See how the female-centered follow-up compares (and doesn’t), and what the fellas think!

It is time for an encore performance this week. Having finished up our review of the fantastic Oceans trilogy, Greg and I decided to take a curtain call, of sorts, and review 2018’s almost all female spinoff, Oceans 8. It is another excellent installment in the Oceans franchise, there is no doubt about that. But does it measure up when compared to the original trilogy? Read on dear reader and find out.

The Flick: Ocean’s 8

Ocean’s 8 begins eerily similar to the way Ocean’s Eleven began. This time out, it is Debbie Ocean, the sister of Danny Ocean, who gets paroled from prison. During her five years, eight months, and twelve days in the joint, Debbie came up with the idea for a heist that would make her brother proud. Unfortunately, Danny is now deceased. But, similar to her brother, Debbie puts together a team of like-minded women to pull off the caper of a lifetime: To steal the Toussaint diamonds, a $150 million Cartier necklace. To do this, she enlists Lou, her former partner in crime and, perhaps, former love interest to help her. They then go about putting together a team that truly resembles the type of team Danny Ocean put together in the Oceans trilogy, including hackers, pick-pockets, a fashion designer, a jewelry maker, and a professional fence who has been moving stolen goods out of her suburban home for years now. The plot is every bit as ingenious as any that Danny would have come up with and Debbie shares her brother’s air of confidence about everything she is doing. Like Danny in Ocean’s Eleven, there is also a personal element about the heist for Debbie that adds that certain extra element that makes this movie exceptional.

In Ocean’s 8, the plan is to convince film star Daphne Kluger to enlist the services of fashion-designer Rose Weil to design her outfit for the upcoming Met Gala. To cap off the outfit, Rose convinces the caretakers of the Toussaint to let Daphne wear the necklace for the Gala by noting how much exposure such an event could bring to the Cartier family, which has fallen out of the public spotlight a bit over the years. The elaborate plan then involves a bit of food poisoning of Daphne and a switch of the real necklace with a phony. Along the way, the hacker, Nine Ball, has created a blind spot for the museum’s security cameras, while Tammy masterfully organizes everyone to be in the right place at the right time. Amita disassembles the real necklace while the museum is in lockdown and is able to sneak the necklace out in multiple pieces, just in time for Tammy to pull the fake necklace out of a moat in the museum exhibit.

Up to now, Ocean’s 8felt a bit too “paint-by-the-numbers” to me. But it is the last third of the movie that really delivers and made this installment worthy of the Oceans moniker. We find out that Daphne realized early on that something was amiss and she wants in on a split of things in exchange for keeping the girls out of jail. She helps to set up Claude Becker, her date for the Expo, and former love interest of Debbie (who also framed Debbie and caused her to be incarcerated), to get busted with not only a piece of the necklace but to also have to answer questions about why four old ladies who, apparently, did not really exist, made substantial deposits to Becker’s various holdings. On top of that, we also learn that Lou enlisted the aid of Yen, the grease man from the original trilogy, to help with an elaborate side plot to steal numerous other royal jewels that were on display, the value of which exceeded the value of the Toussaint. The women succeed in their endeavors and exit much more cleanly than Danny, Rusty, and any of the guys did in any of the original trilogies’ installments. The movie ends with Debbie at Danny’s tomb where she has a martini and says that she knows that Danny would have “loved it.”

Synopsis/breakdown provided by the man himself, Dave Ungar!

The Nerds’ Take on Ocean’s 8 (2018):

Dave Ungar: I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this movie, especially the final third where things start to really develop before your eyes. I was skeptical at first. Not because the movie had an all-female cast. Not at all. But because it was a complete changeover from the first three movies and the characters I had grown to love (albeit not as much as Greg). The way things evolved as the movie went along felt more like Oceans Eleven than either Twelve or Thirteen felt. I still prefer Twelve over this one, but I would put this one right there with Oceans Thirteen. If there is anything to complain about though, it is that this movie seemed to try too hard to replicate too many aspects of Oceans Eleven. This deliberate attempt to “catch lightning in a bottle” twice scores in some places, but misses the mark in others. For instance, when Lou finds out about Debbie’s plan to ruin Becker, she expresses the same concerns that Rusty expressed to Danny when he learned of Tess’s involvement in Ocean’s Eleven. However, this time around, it felt a bit too forced and just seemed like too overt an attempt to replicate a powerful moment from the original movie.

One place where Ocean’s 8 did not have to take a backseat to any of the other three movies was the cast. On sheer star power alone, Oceans 8 is more than a match for any of the original trilogy. Sandra Bullock turns in a great performance as Debbie Ocean and Cate Blanchett shines as Lou, a very different role when one considers that this is Galadriel/ Hela we are talking about. Anne Hathaway as Daphne Kluger is utterly awesome, especially once she is in on the heist and her character and demeanor shifts dramatically. Helena Bonham Carter, arguably steals the show as fashion designer Rose Weil. Throw in tremendous performances from Mindy Kaling as jewelry maker Amita, Sarah Paulson as master fencer/organizer Tammy, and Rihanna as the hacker, Nine Ball, and it is easy to see why this movie hits many of the right notes.

Ocean’s 8 did not fare quite as well as its predecessors, either critically or at the box office, which is hardly surprising considering the legacy it had to live up to. That should, in no way, dissuade you from checking it out. There is a lot here to enjoy if you enjoyed the original trilogy, so much so that it would be a mistake for any fan of the Ocean’s trilogy to not check this out. It is another movie I can wholeheartedly recommend as a very worthy investment of two hours of your time.

Dave’s Rating: 4/5

Greg DeMarco: Okay, I am going to update my disclaimer that I have used for the past Ocean’s movies. You can’t compare Ocean’s Eleven to Ocean’s Twelve or Ocean’s Thirteen. It’s simply not fair to either movie to be compared to the greatest movie of all time! (No, I am not kidding.) You also can’t compare Ocean’s 8, which followed the greatest trilogy of all time (shut up) eleven years (don’t think that’s an accident, either) later with a star studded female cast.

On its own, this is a damn good heist movie. Great performances by Sandra Bollock (Debbie Ocean), Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling really stand out, but the entire crew does a great job. Of course we are stealing something, and this time it was (allegedly) the Toussaint, a $150 million necklace that Hathaway’s character was going to wear to the Met Gala.

I love the fact that Hathaway’s Daphne Kluger figures it all out, and basically pushes her way in and gets an eighth of the share. Lou’s (Planchette) sworn enemy Claude Becker gets framed for the crime, and arrested. As is always the case with an Ocean’s movie, there is more than meets the eye. While everything was going down, Lou and Ocean’s trilogy cameo The Amazing Yen (Qin Shaobo) stole all of the jewels on display at the Gala, increasing everyone’s take and helping them all find what they were looking for.

The movie also features a cameo from Elliot Gould’s Ruben Tishkoff, and filmed one for Matt Damon’s Linus Caldwell that was (sadly) left on the cutting room floor. Danny Ocean makes a pseudo cameo that I am going into next.

At the end of the movie, Debbie Ocean visits Danny’s tomb. Now, do you really think Danny’s dead? Because I sure as hell don’t! I was half (more like three-quarter) expecting him to appear from around the corner to embrace his sister, but it never happened. But it leaves everyone wondering: could there be more Ocean’s movies?

George Clooney wanted to go out on top with Ocean’s Thirteen, and two of the original Eleven have passed away. That makes Ocean’s Fourteen nearly impossible to do, considering the people involved. But maybe you get an Ocean’s Nine all-female sequel, where we find out Danny really isn’t dead, and that can lead to, say, Ocean’s Fifteen, where Danny and Debbie lead a group of men and women on a heist that can easily include Julia Roberts and Catherine Zeta Jones as part of the crew (hell, they could be in Nine!).

That’s fanboy fantasy booking at it’s finest, but that’s what Tony Khan does on a weekly basis–if Jacksonville Dixie can do it, so can I!

As far as my overall impression, of course I love this movie. I won’t compare it to the other three–especially the first–but standing on it’s own it’s a really good watch. I highly recommend you check it out!

Greg’s Rating: 4.25/5

Overall BWN Nerds’ Rating on Ocean’s 8 (2018): 4.125/5