Friday, June 08, 2007

Ocean 13, A Movie Review

Packed to the hilt with a cast containing more star power than the very zodiac itself, Ocean 13 begs the question we've been begging since alien space zombies from another planet colonized earth hundreds of years ago, namely, What would happen if a sequel prequeled the future as it pertained to the past, but only insofar as the present presupposed an alternate historical outcome?

Answer: Greenhouse gasses. And mistaken identity.

Everybody's back for this one, folks. And I do mean everybody. George Cooley (Syriania, Good Germans!, Where's My Brother At?,), Bradly Pit (A Perfect Confession Of Minds, Snatched, Talk About Fight Club), Mark Damien (Syria, The Born Ascendency, Where's Private Ryan At?), Glen Gould (Open The Window, *M*A*S*H*, Variation Goldberg), Allen Patchino (60 Minutes, That Jew In Venice, O Godfather 2, Atticus), Dan Cheedle (Hotel California, Wedding Crash, Traffic Jam), Casey Affleck (The Goodwill Haunting, Super Man, voice of the duck in those insurance commercials that I like so much), Jesus Christ (Tempting Last Passion, God Is My Co Pilate, Hi I'm Jesus), Bernard Mack (Guess Who's At Dinner, Charlie Angel: Full Frontal), Rob Reiner (All Of The Family, Time Cop, Plains Tranes And Auto Mobiles), Julie Robertson (Little Pretty Women, Moaning Lisa's Smile, You're Fired!), Jerry Garcia (Better Off Dead Again), everybody and his brother (Art Of The Cameo), and the kitchen sink (Canonball Runs), all to a man reprising their roles, respectively, as Paul Motian, Rusty, Steve, Dave, Lester, himself, The Baron, Simon, Paul, Arthur, herself, desk clerk, Manny Rivers, Norbert, Hal, 2nd man in bathroom, Jack, Barry, Terrance, somebody's brother, and Riley McSwoon, respectably.

But they're not robbing any Las Vegas gambling casino places this go around, folks. Nope. This time our ragged band of lovable thieves are stealing a little something else, namely, the ozone hole. And our hearts, of course!

The year: future, population: global heating. Our planet, i.e., earth, has caught on fire again.

Let's back up.

In the olden days, back before VCRs, indoor toilets and time, God created The Ozone Layer 6,429 years ago, a "layer" that lets in the good light and keeps out the bad, for whatever reason. But before you can watch your presidential legacy slowly "go up in flames" like a dumpster fire at Munchies, the ozone pops, springs a leak, and worldwide panic breaks out like a staff infection at the mall. The world's greatest scientists are befuddled by these staged events and are at a complete and total loss as to its inevitable cause, how to profit from it, and how it could only be accounted for possibly by whale songs.

Or perhaps because of people idling in their cars with the engine running, sitting in the parking lot of their gym, waiting for someone to pull out of a parking spot so they can snag one that is approximately 3 meters closer to the front door than that one over there that they could've already been parked in 10 minutes ago, asshat. You're at the fuckin' gym, for goodness sakes.

And faster than you can apply some sunscreen, literally, preferably SPF 50 or above, out goes the good light, and in comes the bad. Today everybody's brown. And just like that we're right back where we started from. At. Er...

Mr. Gorbachev: Tear up that hole!

That's where our randy gang of ne're-do-wells comes in, in a large boat they've rented, to find a way to put out all the fires and whatnot. Of the 12 known oceans on earth, only the 13th one can keep Mount Everest from burning down the whole kip and kaboodle like a broiler at Sizzler's. For, you see, there's magic in that water that the aliens put there so we would devolve slowly back into fish.(It's one of those "master plan" thingies. It's all very esoteric. Just roll with the tide, if you will.)

Will they find it in time? Will Steve's Ocean Water Fire Put Outer invention work properly? Will nature find a way to save itself from us? Will that one guy over emote again? Will every single gag in the whole movie be a smirking inside joke amongst the cast and crew so that the audience in its entirety is left feeling like a 3rd wheel on a mini-bike? Probably.

But I don't want to give away too many secrets.

Bottom line, folks, we don't want movies like Ocean 13. We need movies like Ocean 13, if for no other reason than truth may sometimes be stranger than fiction, but sometimes fiction is almost always preferable, especially when you consider the source of the "truth" in the first place.

(They say it's better than Ocean's Twelve. Wow. That's quite the endorsement, seeing as how The Da Vinci Code is better than Ocean's Twelve.)