OCEAN'S EIGHT—NOT QUITE ALL WET

OCEAN'S EIGHT—NOT QUITE ALL WETDespite an uneven beginning, Ocean's Eight turns into a solid if uninspired heist film, with a final twist making the journey worthwhile. An exercise in girl power, Ocean's Eight gives several deserved nods to its big brothers (Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen), but would have been better dispensing with the traditional and, in this case, tedious, gathering of the crooks. Everyone in the audience knew where this was going and squirmed around until the actual caper fired up.

Once our intrepid crew of female heisters gets on the job (apparently, all female master crooks are cool, beautiful, and/or interestingly quirky), we're happy to be along for the ride, but the film suffers from an overall lack of tension as there is never any chance our thieves are going to get caught or be unsuccessful in pulling off their chosen caper.

However, James Corden shows up to save the day with a serio-comic turn as an insurance investigator, injecting life into the film's third act. Unfortunately, his standout performance makes a male the most interesting character in the heavily female-centric action.

Ocean's Eight is light entertainment. It doesn't ask too much of its audience. In the final accounting, it's a glossy and passable PG-13 franchise entry with (refreshingly) no surprise f-bombs and no uncomfortable, unnecessary, hide-your-eyes sex scenes...