Ocean's Thirteen: The Film that was Barely There

Ocean’s Thirteen is fine. Not fine like a Magritte painting or Cuban rum; fine like a sandwich from Subway. It is by no means the greatest thing you have eaten this week but at least it is not a Beef n’ Cheddar from Arby’s.
Steven Soderberg and his posse of collaborators have created a piece of film so smooth and mild that you may leave only with the vague sense that you saw a movie. It flows along at an easy speed so you will not be jarred. The actors are appropriately handsome, charming, dastardly, funny and (in the case of Ellen Barkin) too hot for their age; but not so much that you will nudge the person next to you and comment on it. There are jokes you will laugh at but not remember. There are plot twists that are convincing only if you promise yourself not to give them a second thought later on. And so the movie progresses and climaxes and ends and you leave $9 poorer feeling as if you have been marginally entertained but unable to verbalize why.
At the end of its run in theaters Ocean’s Thirteen will have made lots of money. It is destined to make a killing in DVD as well because no one will be able to remember if they saw it in the theater or not.