A review of the new movie “Ocean’s Eight”
One effective way of providing more high-profile roles for more talented actresses is to take an existing successful franchise and gender-swap the characters. It was tried with “Ghostbusters” and now we have a female version of the ensemble heist movie that we saw with “Ocean’s Eleven” (2001) [my review here], “Ocean’s Twelve” (2004) [my review here] and “Ocean’s Thirteen” (2007) [my review here].
The three previous works were all directed by Steven Soderbergh who this time is simply a producer, handing the directorial reins to Gary Ross (“The Hunger Games”) who co-wrote the script with Olivia Milch.
There is a wonderful cast list with lots of established talent – headed by Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett and Anne Hathaway – supplemented with some newer screen faces – such as Rihinna and Awkafina – designed to attract a wide (largely female, no doubt) demographic. The other members of the octet, each recruited to bring particular skills to the robbery, are played by Helena Bonham Carter, Sarah Paulson and Mindy Kaling.
As if this was not enough thespian stardom, there is a charming cameo from James Cordon and the credits include a long list of famous people as themselves attending the ball at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.
The actors look cool and the production is flashy in this enjoyable romp, but it is a triumph of style over substance with no real sense of excitement or jeopardy.