Vegas, Baby, Vegas!

This last summer was dominated by 'threequels,' those insufferable third installments of a franchise with taglines like "They're back!" I did not expect to get summer fever this last year from one of these widow-making box office bonanzas, but I can say that my favorite theater experience of 2007 was over a dozen male actors schlepping around Las Vegas.

"Ocean's Thirteen," one of the last "third installments" this past summer of rehashes had a lot of bad things going for it. One, it could not live up to the slick fun that the first movie offered. Two, it had the distinct honor of following 2004's jumbled mess, Ocean's Twelve. Three, movie fans were officially burnt-out early on with sequels, during sequel season no less. Despite all this, Thirteen was the most fun I had in a big-budget sequel all year.

I was genuinely surprised to enjoy the newest adventure from Danny Ocean (George Clooney, playing himself), Rusty Ryan (Brad Pitt, playing a very slick version of himself) and all my old friends, on a new adventure.

Everything from the first two installments played a valuable role in this movie, but a newcomer could still enjoy it because the plot follows a sit-com archetype, just with a bigger budget, better humor and more unbelievable situations. This flick begins with a fresh idea that one of the loveable rogues from the original can get conned. Instead of a two hour heist, we get a two hour revenge plot, with some heist-like qualities.

The acting, as with any powerhouse cast this size, is amazing. Between the original eleven, Andy Garcia as old-time villain Benedict and Al Pacino as new-time villain Willie Bank, there are seven Oscar nods or wins and half a dozen Emmys. Pacino played Pacino in this picture and he is delightfully wicked. Garcia is humorous in his deadpan glory and the illustrious eleven are like Abbot, Costello, the Three Stooges, the four Marx brothers, James Bond and Austin Powers packed into a single franchise. One cannot help but note the absences of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Julia Roberts, but I honestly think that it made guy's night so much better.

The dialogue is a giant paradox. While the writers keep snappy jokes and quick comments up, showing the audience that they trust us to understand the humor, they explain the rules of casinos, the gadgetry and the laws of land deeds in a way that treats the audience like fools. It still works regardless of the fast pace, but it was annoying.

Steven Soderbergh shot this sequel in the same slick and action-oriented way the first two were presented. I forgot that I was watching a character/dialogue film. The idea is great, though with enough split-screen shots, quick-pans and slow-motion shots, the audience is fooled into paying attention without computer generated graphics.

I fully understand why Soderbergh, Clooney and Pitt recently admitted to calling this film 'Ocean's Thirteen, the one we should have made before.' Quite frankly, I call it 'Ocean's Thirteen, the one I should have saved my money for.'

"Spider-man 3" while enjoyable, was trying a little too hard, and "Pirates 3" while still a barrel of fun, had too much to clean up. I didn't get the chance to see "Shrek the Third" though I had heard similar things.

I thank my lucky stars that the summer of trilogies is over. I can always visit it again by watching Ocean's Thirteen, my favorite threequel. It gets five stolen diamonds out of five.•