6. Danny Ocean And His Team In The Oceans Trilogy
Steven Soderbergh's recent retiring from filmmaking will probably end up being more of a break. If he does indeed return to the directors chair, it's unlikely he'll ever match the success of the Ocean's Trilogy. More than a little successfully updating the middling Rat Pack vehicle from the sixties, it presented refreshingly alternative blockbuster entertainment with an all star cast. And when you have that, why bother with development. In each film, Ocean wants to steal or con someone out of something and in each film he succeeds. There are setbacks, but as frantically edited montages tell us, each one was part of his deviously intricate plan. And its not just George Clooney's ex-con either. Every one of the eleven/twelve/thirteen go through as much character development as Bruce Willis in that irritating/perplexing (delete as appropriate) cameo. The plot's are so convoluted and winding that there's only ever time for one dimensional characters; the bickering brothers, English techie etc. At the end of the day, however, they're knockabout films made purely for fun, so its hard to criticise Soderbergh, Clooney and co. too much.