Five years, eight months, 12 days and counting -- that's how long Debbie Ocean has been devising the biggest heist of her life. She knows what it's going to take -- a team of the best people in the field, starting with her partner-in-crime Lou Miller. Together, they recruit a crew of specialists, including jeweler Amita, street con Constance, suburban mom Tammy, hacker Nine Ball, and fashion designer Rose. Their target -- a necklace that's worth more than $150 million.
There have been plenty of films in the 'Oceans' franchise which date back to roughly twenty years ago, the release of a new 'Oceans' film - 8 - brings a new and fresh twist to the series by using an all female cast. That twists and brings a dramatic change to the franchise. There are plenty of big names in this film too, Anne Hathaway, Sandra Bullock and even Rihanna! So surely this has all of the ingredients to be a super successful and enjoyable film... right? Not entirely, but the film was still impressive regarding its cinematography and the use of audio to communicate with the audience too. I won't reveal too much yet, as more of that will come later on in the review.
Firstly, onto what I liked about the film. The first and main element I noticed about this film that I liked was the variety of camera angles and audio moods, the manner in which cameras were spun around or used in the first person really gave the audience a great interpretation of a criminal heist movie and were a really refreshing difference to see in a modern film. The use of camera angles and shots were created really well to inflict an emotion of tension to the audience too, such as the camera swinging round to focus in on a security camera or to focus on one of the security guards, which really helped them to stand out and communicate how the characters were feeling to the audience. The non-diegetic audio was also very effective in a similar way. Throughout most of the film there was a typical 'Italian Job' kind of musical tone which not only helped to bring tension to the audience but also to show the organisation and quick movements that were going on within the heist. I really liked the audio choices and the use of lengthy audio clips too, in this film I think they were really effective and this relayed to the audience well to have a classical effect. Throughout the film each of the 'team' was preparing themselves in their own way; during the heist they were all working in individual roles whilst as a team. To help keep the audience up to date with how everyone was doing, there were quick camera transitions to show the situation of each character and how they were feeling. I really liked how this was executed in such a clean, swift manner whilst also maintaining its job of keeping the audience up to date with how the heist was going - which I feel altogether was done very well. There were no confusing elements as to how each character was doing and the organised vibe from this film really shone through by using these features.
I especially thought it was clever how the film allowed the characters to negotiate and manoeuvre from difficult scenarios in a typical heist film scenario, of the team being seconds away from being caught and the whole operation being a failure. There were plenty of these scenarios during the film which really caused a 'heart in your throat' kind of moment (if that's the saying!) and really left the audience unsure of whether the team would fail in their heist. Leaving the audience to breathe a sign of relief when there was a typical distraction to save the day! I was impressed with the choice of locations within the film too, by using a mixture of areas within New York such as a murky warehouse, compared to a high end 'Cartier' jewelery shop, the film was able to provide something for all audiences.
As the film progressed it was good to see the different characters develop too and their relationships with each other change. By seeing how important each character was to the operation, it gave the characters a sense of purpose and importance to the plot and it didn't feel as if there were any characters that were useless or bad in their role. I am satisfied with the acting in the film and even though it was cheesy at times, overall I feel that the actors represented their characters well and even the inclusion of James Cordon towards the end was a nice touch and brought in another well known iconic character into the film.
The film did have a good set of audio and camera shots, yes. And the characters were represented fairly well - for some of the film at least. But personally, for me, I feel there were too many issues that the film had, that unfortunately ended the party for me. I'll start off with the main issues I had with the film. Firstly, for the beginning of the film for the first 30 minutes I had no idea who the characters were, their importance to the plot was or even why things were happening in the plot of the film. And yes, this was slowly described throughout the rest of the film, but for me I just feel that there were far too many issues and holes with the plot for it to be a successful film. Following on from not knowing what was happening, I thought that when I did understand what was happening, the plot was very unrealistic to quite a severe level which was difficult to take to be honest! I understand not every film is super realistic, if they were then we would probably just watch a film about a regular day in the life of a random person which is boring! But with the plot moving so fast (which to note, I found too quick to keep up with) and many of the sections and actions during the film having some kind of flaw, the plot overall was ruined for me. Other scenes that were difficult to enjoy included the scene where one of the characters was unsure of how to use tinder - I mean it's 2018 and as a fairly young girl I'm sure the concept of Tinder surely isn't that hard to grasp? But for this character it was - I was unsure of whether this was supposed to be a joke or just another scene to create a character ecosystem around the group??
It just felt to me like the film was too straightforward, usually with heist or criminal films something goes wrong, but nothing really seemed to go wrong for the characters - it was relatively straightforward for them. Which is great for the characters as they get to steal the diamonds relatively hassle free, but for the audience? That's another story. What was slightly annoying about the characters too was that everything they had was described as "the best in the world", which may be appealing for a 1960s film but audiences have heard that phrase so many times that the meaning has been washed away and left a boring mark. And this film definitely had a few of those boring marks, which is a real shame because it overlooks the positives of the film and leaves a negative impact on the film overall.
Overall, I would rate this film a 7/10. I feel that even though the plot was flawed and at some times, boring, the introduction of an all female cast and the use of intriguing camera angles and audio created a really positive effect of the film for the audience, giving the series a fresh new take and appeal for viewers. I will add that I feel a little bit let down due to the lack of surprises and twists that I expect from heist films, but there was a twist towards the end which kind of redeemed the film in that respect.
Thank for for reading my review, I hope you enjoyed reading my review as much as I did writing this! As a side note, if you have any friends or family that enjoy films, then it would be great if you could send them along to my website, it may even turn out to be their favourite website. Who knows? Fingers crossed! ;)
Comments