Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		4.0

Ocean's 8 Blu-ray Movie Review

Swindling Sister

Reviewed by Michael Reuben September 18, 2018

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.

The Ocean of this film is Danny Ocean's sister, Debbie, who is played by Sandra Bullock with the same quiet self-assurance that George Clooney brought to his character in the first three films. (Maybe unshakeable self-confidence is a family trait, along with larceny.) In one of many nods to its predecessor, Ocean's 8 begins with Debbie convincing a parole board to let her out of jail after a little more than five years, even though she has no intention of reforming. She's spent the long hours in her cell formulating an ambitious con that her brother would be proud of, if he hadn't recently died. Before she puts her plan into action, Debbie visits Danny's crypt, and she returns there one more time before the film is over, even though she's not entirely convinced that her brother is really in there. Debbie knows only too well that, when it comes to the Ocean family, nothing is what it seems.

Debbie's caper involves a $150 million Cartier diamond necklace that hasn't left the fabled jeweler's vault in fifty years. But Debbie plans to persuade Cartier to retrieve the fabulous bauble to adorn the neck of film star Daphne Kluger (Anne Hathaway) at New York's most glamorous and exclusive event, the annual gala held every May at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her scheme requires a team of seven, each with special talents. (The title cheats slightly by counting Daphne as the eighth member of the team, albeit an unwitting one.) Debbie's chief co-conspirator is old friend and partner-in-crime Lou (Cate Blanchett), who now runs a successful downtown club where she makes useful connections and continues to perpetrate petty scams like watering the vodka. Lou is to Debbie what Brad Pitt's Rusty was to Danny, and Blanchett brings the same easygoing charm to the role that Pitt displayed in the original trilogy. (Is there anything that woman can't do?)

The rest of the team is a collection of eccentric talents, every one of whom ends up looking fabulous in a stylish evening gown (though most wear several less fashionable outfits before their runway moment arrives). Amita (Mindy Kaling) is the jeweler charged with breaking down the Cartier necklace once the group quietly removes it from Daphne Kluger's neck. Constance (Awkwafina, now even better known thanks to Crazy Rich Asians) is the light-fingered thief charged with the removal. Nine-Ball (Rihanna, hiding her glamor under dreadlocks and a rasta cap) is the hacker who bypasses the Met's security and turns the museum's closed-circuit surveillance into the gang's obedient servant. Tammy (Sarah Paulson), a soccer mom who sells stolen goods out of her suburban garage, becomes the group's all-purpose procurer. The trickiest enlistee is Rose Weil, a flighty and eccentric fashion designer (played by the sometimes flighty and certainly eccentric Helena Bonham Carter), who has fallen on hard times, which makes her a willing recruit when Debbie and Lou come calling. They adroitly maneuver Rose into the coveted position of being the designer who will create Daphne Kluger's gown for the Met Gala—a gown for which Rose simply must have that Cartier necklace to complete the ensemble, or the heavens will fall.

As usual in an Ocean's film, there are unforeseen complications requiring last-minute improvisations, and there are wheels within wheels spinning in the mastermind's quietly whirring brain. One of those inside tracks concerns Debbie's former boyfriend and partner, Claude Becker (Richard Armitage), an art dealer who let Debbie take the rap for their last job. With five years to design her comeback con, Debbie has also had plenty of time to plot her revenge. When Lou discovers that Debbie's scheme has reserved a special place in hell for her ex, the cautious club owner warns her partner about the danger of pulling "a job within a job", but Debbie reassures her with a quiet smile. (The entire film is one of Bullock's most understated performances, and it's easy to miss just how much her stillness and self-possession cradle the theatrical excess of some of the other performances.)

Ross and his cinematographer, Eigil Bryld (In Bruges), shoot New York City as a glittering playground of the rich and famous—believe me, it never looks that good—and there are plenty of celebrity cameos to create what passes in an Ocean's film for verisimilitude. James Corden give the film's third act a shot of comic adrenaline as a canny insurance investigator, and a few members of the old gang return for brief appearances before Debbie's elaborate spindle of cheats and deceptions fully unwinds to its last, satisfying twist. As she says to her brother, wherever he may really be, "You would have loved it."

Ocean's 8 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

Ocean's 8 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 2.40:1; 1:53): The two scenes are not separately listed or selectable, and the introductory title cards contain only scene numbers. Scene 96 involves Tammy's report on the party the gang is trying to crash. Scene 250A is a facetious exchange (on both sides) between Tammy and Debbie after the job's end.



• Reimagining the Met Gala (1080p; 2.40:1; 12:47): Director Ross, various cast and crew and members of the Met staff discuss how the film took over the famous museum for its version of the gala. The production received unprecedented cooperation from the historically cautious institution, no doubt due in part to the participation of Vogue and its legendary editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour.



• A Heist in Heels (1080p; 2.40:1; 11:35): Ross, co-writer Milch, costume designer Sarah Edwards and the cast discuss the film's many wardrobe changes and variations.



• Ocean's Team 3.0 (1080p; 2.40:1; 13:20): Ross and participants from the previous extras discuss the challenge of casting a film where group chemistry is even more important than the individual performances.



• Introductory Trailers: The film's trailer is not included (which is unfortunate; it was fun). At startup, the disc plays trailers for the upcoming remake of A Star Is Born and Crazy Rich Asians, plus the current Warner "Superheroes in HDR" promo for UHD.

Ocean's 8 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.