6.2 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Debbie Ocean gathers a crew to attempt an impossible heist at New York City's yearly Met Gala.
Starring: Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Mindy Kaling, Sarah PaulsonAction | 100% |
Comedy | 72% |
Heist | 27% |
Crime | Insignificant |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.39:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English DD=narrative descriptive; TrueHD=48kHz, 16-bit
English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
Digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
The announcement that Warner was adding an all-female follow-up to the popular Ocean's series
directed by Steven Soderbergh was greeted by predictable groans about political correctness and
similar knee-jerk complaints. But Gary Ross's Ocean's 8, co-written by the director with Olivia
Milch, isn't anything like the ill-conceived distaff reboot of Ghostbusters two years ago. It's a
genuine sequel to the Soderbergh trilogy, and Soderbergh was one of its producers. Ross's film
does exactly what a sequel should do: give the audience an artful blend of the familiar and the
all-new. It sticks with the Ocean's formula of slowly unfurling a complicated con conducted by
pretty people wearing flattering outfits in glitzy surroundings. It just changes the locale and the
dramatis personae. (Let's face it. By Ocean's
Thirteen, Clooney's crew and the Vegas setting
were pretty much played out.) The effect is to open up new frontiers for charming deception and
clever skullduggery.
Despite the naysayers, Ocean's 8 delivered a solid hit for Warner Brothers, grossing a worldwide
$300 million against a production budget of $70. That's a lot more bang for the buck than many
of Warner's live-action DC films. This good-looking Blu-ray presentation (and accompanying
4K) should add a tidy sum to that total, though probably not as
much as the film's caper nets its
gang of thieves.
Ocean's 8 was shot digitally (on various models of the Arri Alexa, if IMDb is to be believed) by Eigil Bryld (In Bruges) and finished on a digital intermediate. The final image retains the sharpness, clarity and detail typical of digital capture, but the DI colorist has also given it a subtly film-like texture that adds a sense of depth to the film's glamorous locales. Everything looks good in Ocean's 8, even the interview room for Debbie's parole hearing and Lou's run-down loft that becomes the gang's base of operations. Of course, the richest treatment is reserved for upscale locations like Daphne Kluger's home, Rose Weil's runway show (in the old TWA terminal at Kennedy Airport) and, in the film's pièce de résistance, the grand Met Gala with its red carpet, staircase entrance past rows of "servants" in 18th Century garb and perfectly set banquet tables in the great hall holding the Temple of Dendur. Blacks are dark and deep, colors are richly saturated, and each of the film's eight lead actresses is lit like a star. Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray effectively reproduces Bryld's lighting and director Gary Ross's efficient compositions, and my only real criticism, having seen the film theatrically, is that the Blu-ray doesn't quite capture the full intensity and dimensionality of the film's make-believe eye candy. (The 4K disc is a different story.) Maybe that's just the limit of Blu-ray's 1080p resolution and Rec. 709 color space—or maybe it's the continued insistence of Warner's theatrical division on constraining the bitrate, even when there's plenty of room on the disc. Ocean's 8 has been authored with an average rate of 23.405 Mbps, with over 13 GB of unused space on the BD-50. How much better could it have looked on Blu-ray with less parsimonious compression? We'll never know.
Ocean's 8 arrives with a Dolby Atmos soundtrack, but it isn't one that anyone is likely to use to demo the format's most ear-catching capabilities. The mix provides effective environmental ambiance throughout the film, but the big moments arrive via dialogue exchanges rather than sonic overkill. That dialogue is very clearly rendered and almost entirely front-oriented, and discrete off-camera sound effects are never allowed to distract from the interactions among the sizeable cast. What the Atmos track does superbly is reproduce the film's playful music track, which consists of original scoring by Daniel Pemberton (The Man from U.N.C.L.E.) combined with an eclectic selection that runs the gamut from Johann Sebastian Bach to The Notorious B.I.G. Atmos can do wonderful things with music, subtly detaching cues from the center and placing them where they'll be most effective. Ocean's 8 is an understated but effective demonstration of those capabilities.
Heists and cons are a well-established genre, and no sequel is likely to match the rush of
originality that Soderbergh and his gang brought to their initial outing in Ocean's Eleven. But
Ocean's 8 is a worthy addition to the franchise, with a refreshing and often unexpected take on a
series that most would have said was thoroughly exhausted. Whether Debbie & Co. can do it
again remains an open question, but if anyone ever figures out how to build a film around the
Ocean siblings teaming up, the results could be magical. (We already know from Gravity that
Bullock and Clooney work well together.) Ocean's 8 is careful to leave that door open. The film
itself is great light-hearted entertainment without a serious bone in its body. Warner's Blu-ray
treatment is effective as far it goes and recommended—but those with 4K systems will want to
hold out for that version.
Extended Edition
2011
2011
2017
2001
2013
Extended Cut
2013
IMAX Enhanced
2020
2017
2019
2016
2016
1995
The Unrated Other Edition
2010
1999
2017
2007
2011
2021
1995
2014