I must have missed the first ten.

Saw Ocean's 13 yesterday.

It's good. If you liked Ocean's 11, you'll like this one almost as much, because it's a rewrite of the same movie. Casino heist for revenge. It's a good premise. Then load down the movie with Hollywood superstars, and it's hard to go wrong. This one's a bit more convoluted than 11, and less exciting, but it's not bad.

I need to provide some background before I say anything more about 13, so let's leave that for a moment and talk a bit about 11.

Ocean's 11 was the epitome of cool. The music was cool, the visual stylings were cool, and it starred a bunch of cool guys wearing cool clothes. And they said cool things. It was cool, through and through. And I think it's sort of a tribute to the more golden years of Hollywood.

And I know it's a remake of a Rat Pack movie, but I'm not talking about that at all.

What I'm talking about more is how Ocean's 11 is like an old Fred Astaire movie. Fred Astaire did three things well: sing, dance, and wear a tuxedo. And he did them very well. Thus, in every movie he's in he ends up singing and dancing at some point. And, inexplicably, the plot of the movie always makes it necessary for his character to be wearing a tuxedo the whole time. In several movies he played a performer whose job it was to sing, dance, and wear a tuxedo. It was a recipe for success because he was the best at it, so they wrote his movies around him.

Ocean's 11, I think, is a lot like that... only more so because you bring in a bunch of superstars. George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, etc... any of these guys can (and do) star alone in their own movies. And the first three listed can be pretty cool. Ocean's 11 gives these guys the chance to hang around in sharp-looking clothes and say cool things, just because they're good at it. It's written for them. One would expect that they're hardly even playing characters, as much as they're playing themselves.

Which brings us back to Ocean's 13. The plot doesn't have anything new and worth writing home about. But it's always good to see these guys doing what they do best.