Ocean’s 8 (2018) Review

Time: 110 Minutes
Age Rating: Offensive language
Cast:
Sandra Bullock as Debbie Ocean
Cate Blanchett as Lou Miller
Anne Hathaway as Daphne Kluger
Mindy Kaling as Amita
Sarah Paulson as Tammy
Awkwafina as Constance
Rihanna as Nine Ball
Helena Bonham Carter as Rose Weil
Richard Armitage as Claude Becker
James Corden as John Frazier
Director: Gary Ross

Five years, eight months, 12 days and counting — that’s how long Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) 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 (Cate Blanchett). Together, they recruit a crew of specialists, including jeweler Amita (Mindy Kaling), street con Constance (Awkwafina), suburban mom Tammy (Sarah Paulson), hacker Nine Ball (Rihanna), and fashion designer Rose (Helena Bonham Carter). Their target — a necklace that’s worth more than $150 million.

I was a little sceptical about Ocean’s Eight. It had a lot of potential, with it being a spinoff of the famous Ocean’s series directed by Steven Soderbergh and having a huge and talented cast including Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett and Anne Hathaway. At the same time the advertising for the movie made it look just okay and I was unfortunately not as excited for the movie as I feel I should be considering all the talent involved. Nonetheless I was curious enough to check it out and I’m glad I did. Ocean’s Eight was actually quite a bit of fun with the cast and was yet another reasonably well done heist movie. It does have some faults but its easy to overlook most of them.

I watched the Ocean’s trilogy many years ago and I don’t have the best memory of it but I do remember liking it. Ocean’s Eight does similar things that other heist movies have done (like the original Ocean’s trilogy), it has a similar structure, and it has some similar sequences like the team recruiting montages and the twist montages where it reveals everything that happened. It doesn’t really do anything new but it does everything rather well. The first two acts do have moments where it drags and you aren’t as entertained or interested but it does pick up again within a few scenes later. Generally however, it is entertaining, and I was consistently entertained in the 3rd act.

As previously mentioned, Ocean’s Eight has a great cast, with Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter, Sarah Paulson, Anne Hathaway and more and they play their roles well. Some give better performances than others, and they aren’t giving some of the best performances of their careers but they are good here. They have great chemistry and play off each other really well. The two standouts for me though were Helena Bonham Carter and Anne Hathaway, they really were highlights of the film. The weakest performance of the movie was James Corden, he doesn’t have a massive amount of screentime and he’s not bad, not even annoying or anything. But he is very distracting and feels miscast in the role, he plays it like he’s James Corden and not a character.

Gary Ross directs this movie well enough but you do feel the lack of Steven Soderbergh. It does have some stylistic moments and it’s fine and all but it’s missing something. I’m not saying that Steven Soderbergh himself needed to be directing this movie, and Ross’s direction isn’t bad but I think Ocean’s Eight would’ve benefited from better direction.

Ocean’s Eight was a lot of fun. Even if you haven’t watched the original Ocean’s trilogy, that won’t negatively affect your experience of the movie. The cast was great and it was entertaining watching them come together to pull off a heist. It does have some issues but it’s not enough to take away from the overall experience. I do hope that we get at least a couple more movies with these characters, it definitely has potential.

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Inside Out (2015) Review

Time: 95 Minutes
Age Rating:
Cast:
Amy Poehler as the voice of Joy
Phyllis Smith as the voice of Sadness
Bill Hader as the voice of Fear
Lewis Black as the voice of Anger
Mindy Kaling as the voice of Disgust
Director: Pete Docter, Ronnie Del Carmen

Growing up can be a bumpy road, and it’s no exception for Riley, who is uprooted from her Midwest life when her father starts a new job in San Francisco. Like all of us, Riley is guided by her emotions – Joy (Amy Poehler), Fear (Bill Hader), Anger (Lewis Black), Disgust (Mindy Kaling) and Sadness (Phyllis Smith). The emotions live in Headquarters, the control center inside Riley’s mind, where they help advise her through everyday life. As Riley and her emotions struggle to adjust to a new life in San Francisco, turmoil ensues in Headquarters. Although Joy, Riley’s main and most important emotion, tries to keep things positive, the emotions conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house and school.

The initial idea of Inside Out sounds good on paper but doesn’t exactly sound like it could work as a kids’ film. How is it possible that an animated kids’ film could talk about emotions and be complex and intelligent? Somehow Pixar manages to do this and surpass what I originally thought it would be. This is in my opinion Pixar’s best movie since Up and its worth being seen by everyone, young or old.

I’m not going to spoil too much of what happens because you really should go in not knowing too much of what this movie is about. This film is really clever in how it talks about people’s emotions. I’m impressed with the messages that the film decided to go with, some of them are quite challenging and mature, which makes it stand out from other animated movies. The emotions it mainly talks about is Joy and Sadness, as they are the main stars of the film. For example I like how it shows the need for sadness, there aren’t many kids’ films which actually say that sometimes sadness is needed. Along with the emotional moments there are also a lot of comedy which both kids and adults could enjoy, the adults would probably understand it more. That’s another thing worth mentioning, kids and adults can watch this and enjoy it and get different things out of it. Personally I think that adults probably would like this movie more than kids, as they will understand more of it.

All the voice actors are perfectly cast, they are perfectly suited to their character. My personal favourite was Lewis Black as Anger, that’s just me though. Another thing I like is how they managed to make the emotions three dimensional, mostly Joy and Sadness, with them dabbling in the others’ emotions. It does bring up the question, wouldn’t that mean that they have emotions in their head? I don’t think that we’re supposed to be looking that deep though. All of the emotions are entertaining, however Joy and Sadness are really the most developed, the others are fine but aren’t as complex or deep as them.

Pixar as always makes their films look great. As this takes place in someone’s mind, you can imagine the sorts of things that you’ll be seeing there, and the creators really have a lot of ideas of what a teenage girl would have inside her head as Joy and Sadness try to move through it. The animation is beautiful and visually pleasing. The soundtrack accompanying these scenes also adds a lot.

Inside Out is one of the year’s best and it is worth seeing at least once. It’s a beautiful looking, deep, intelligent and funny film that should be seen by people young or old, if they haven’t seen it already. In fact I have a feeling that older and more mature viewers will like it way more than younger viewers, as they will be understand more of what’s going on. It is one of Pixar’s best and one of the smartest animated movies I’ve seen.