Ocean's Eight (2018) - Commercially mandated spin-off sinks

♥♥

 

Eight increasingly diminutive female stars line up on this cinema-red poster for Gary Ross' Ocean's Eight

Danny Ocean's sister is released from prison with a plan: Along with a crew of seven other gifted women she wants to steal a lot of diamonds from the big Met gala in New York.

 

Ocean's Eight is written by Olivia Milch (Dude (2018, story)) and co-writer/director Gary Ross (Pleasantville (1998)). It is a reboot spin-off of the Ocean's franchise begun with Ocean's 11 (1960) and directly related to Steven Soderbergh's Ocean's trilogy (2001-07).

Good musical choices, smashing dresses and a fitting lack of regular action, (there is no pasted on car chase or shoot-out, which suits the film well) are worth commending this mildly entertaining film for, - but regrettably its success is still hindered by several problems:

Sandra Bullock (Love Potion No. 9 (1992)) is the protagonist thief, whom we are naturally supposed to root for, but at this point her heavily surgically 'enhanced' face seriously hamper this engagement, just as her friendship, - or possibly more than friendship (?), - with Cate Blanchett's (Knight of Cups (2015)) character, (Blanchett on the other hand is hidden behind enormous bangs (and often also shades) here, - never becomes really exciting. You can enjoy Rihanna (Guava Island (2019)) solely for who she is in real life here, and Anne Hathaway (Bride Wars (2009)) and Helena Bonham Carter (Shadow Play (1996)) are fairly good, but Ocean's Eight is never very funny or really exciting. It also clings to elements of the preceding films with a clumsy scene with Elliott Gould (Puckoon (2002)) SPOILER as well as a tame, lame ending, in which Bullock makes herself a cocktail in front of (George Clooney's) Danny Ocean's gravestone and saying, "You would have loved it!" In this way Ocean's Eight sticks to the shadow of Soderbergh's films, while a revenge motive behind the big heist never really gets us pumped.

Ocean's Eight is failed; it is unnecessary, disappointing and poor.

 

Related post:

 

Gary Ross: The Hunger Games (2012) - A global, teen-centered sci-fi smash

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 70 mil. $

Box office: 297.7 mil. $

= Big hit (returned 4.25 times its cost)

[Ocean's Eight premiered 5 June (New York) and runs 110 minutes. The film was announced in October 2015. Shooting took place from October 2016 - March 2017 in New York and Los Angele, California. The film opened #1 to a 41.6 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 3 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#3-#5), grossing 140.2 mil. $ (47.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 14 mil. $ (4.7 %) and Australia with 13.6 mil. $ (4.6 %). Ross has not returned as a director since, but is returning as co-writer of Desert Warrior (2022). Bullock returned in Bird Box (2018). Ocean's Eight is fresh at 68 % with a 6.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Ocean's Eight?

Home (2015) - Not much sense to DreamWorks' silly alien romp

♥♥

 

An instantly likable, cute, purple alien character with a snug housecat on its head makes up this poster for Tim Johnson's Home

An unpopular alien, who has made problems for his equals, bands up with a little girl, who has gotten lost from her mother here on earth.

 

Home is written by Tom J. Astle and Matt Ember (Get Smart (2008), both), based on the children's book The True Meaning of Smekday (2007) by Adam Rex (Smek for President (2015)), and directed by great Chicagoan filmmaker Tim Johnson (Antz (1998)).

The silly Boov alien race has somehow overtaken earth here in Home, and that is just one of the many things that aren't explained in it. The film is more invested in being a colorful mix of bright eye candy with patches of comedy and up-tempo music, where inquisitive questions are barred at the door; just brainless good times here. The film embraces the time it is made in for better and worse, so that when it still attempts to straddle a well of themes, it comes off as both superficial and dishonest. The questions can't be bridled by the thinking mind: Why this and why that, one can't help but wonder, - SPOILER and in particular; why do the entire Boov race suddenly go nuts for our ill-faring purple friend towards the end? Their conversion from unsympathetic bullies in the beginning is also unexplained.

Home conjures up a utopian, harmonious, multi-cultural world, - but it is actually funny along the silly way, - Jim Parsons (A Kid Like Jake (2018)) voicing is inspired, - and that is its saving grace.

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 135 mil. $

Box office: 386 mil. $

= Box office success (returned 2.85 times its cost)

[Home premiered 7 March (Boulder International Film Festival, Colorado) and runs 94 minutes. Production took place in California. The film opened #1 to a 52.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 5 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#2-#4-#4-#5). grossing 177.3 mil. $ (45.9 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 38.8 mil. $ (10.1 %) and China with 27.7 mil. $ (7.2 %). It was reported that DreamWorks spent an amount similar to the cost of the film for prints and advertising it. A hand-drawn spin-off series, Home: Adventures with Tip and Oh (2016-18) was produced without the voice stars for Netflix by DreamWorks Animation. Johnson returned with 2 shorts but has not returned with a feature yet; instead he has turned to executive producing. Parsons returned in Visions (2015). Home is rotten at 52 % with a 5.50/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Home?

Battleship (2012) - 200+ mil. $ worth of brainless destruction

♥♥

Liam Neeson, Taylor Kitsch and Rihanna look purposeful on the poster for Peter Berg's Battleship

Aliens enter our atmosphere and fall in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii. - American and Japanese battleships have to fight them.

That is the premise in Battleship, crudely modeled over Hasbro's board game. The film offers good-looking effects, and there is no shortage of explosions, but it is still a boring sci-fi/military/disaster/action movie.
The characters are a bunch of Marines, who speak to each other in code and Navy-slang 90 % of the time, - pretty hard to relate strongly to, or to have any fun with.
When the world in the end has to be saved SPOILER by 'Mighty Mo' - the retired Pearl Harbor battleship - the film becomes involuntarily comical.
Battleship quickly became an infamous dud in Western minds, - although it actually did much better outside of North America, and thus didn't become quite the financial disaster that everyone had already somehow decided that it was. But it is a bad, stupid movie, - with some eye-candy to smoothen its digestion, like the VFX and ...

Taylor Kitsch and Liam Neeson in uniforms

men (and Rihanna) in uniforms.
The film's director Peter Berg (Lone Survivor (2013)) wasn't fully behind it; just weeks after its release, he was talking about its failure and his failure on it in a public Q&A.
Still, probably the main problem of Battleship is its awful script, by Jon and Erich Hoeber (the Red movies).

Related posts:

2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2012 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Watch the film's trailer here

Budget: 209 mil. $
Box office: 303 mil. $
= Flop

What do you think of Battleship?
What board game would you like to see a major studio throw 200 mil. $ after?