Few things can make people stop talking about Star Wars: The Last Jedi long enough to watch a new trailer, but the much-anticipated Oceans 8 is one of them.Tuesday’s first trailer for the all-female Ocean’s Eleven spinoff has inspired a lot of response, so let’s get right to them.
Ashley Lee: This Ocean’s 8 trailer is a perfect way to close out 2017, which began with the Women’s March and has been full of major female-centric milestones. It’s also a very good early Christmas present, because it’s definitely everything I’ve ever wanted in a trailer — Rihanna as a kickass coder, Mindy as an expert jeweler and Awkwafina as a slick thief? Yes, yes, yes.
Katie Kilkenny: For a little over a month now, we haven’t known much about Ocean’s 8 except for that its central heist took place at the Met Gala and it had a scene with all the girls in the subway together. The new trailer finally puts some threads of the storyline together. Sandra Bullock, playing Danny Ocean’s estranged sister, is pulling together the heist; Cate Blanchett is basically her Brad Pitt, the glamorous sidekick and confidante; and Anne Hathaway (or rather, the gigantic jewels on her neck) will be the target. Like her brother Danny, Debbie seems to have revenge as her motive in the heist, but against who still remains unclear (perhaps that man who keeps showing up?). The trailer teases a fair amount of formulaic similarity to the originals, which is both reassuring and disappointing. I’d been hoping this new film would depart in some core ways and revive the franchise — but perhaps we’ll have to wait to see the real thing to know if or how it does.
Graeme McMillan: I can’t work out how I feel about the fact that this scene opens with a variation on the scene that opened the first Ocean’s Eleven trailer. Is that leaning in to the similarity to that movie, or a little too on the nose? The trailer does a pretty good job of reminding everyone what they liked about that movie, while seeming like something other than a retread, though. (I speak as someone who loves the Ocean’s movies enough that I’ll even stand up for Ocean’s Twelve, though, so I might be biased here.) I love the idea that there’s a family of Oceans out there, each one breaking the law and living up to an extremely flawed romantic ideal.
Lee: For those outside of New York City, the Met Gala is definitely the biggest celebrity event of the year. It’s a massive red carpet ready for major fashion moments (to which Rihanna is no stranger!) No press or publicists are ever allowed inside, and even selfies are banned — an unwritten rule most recently broken by Kylie Jenner. So it’s very much a “what happens here, stays here” vibe … until now. Side note: I laughed so hard at Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett plotting a heist in Veselka, a 24-hour Ukrainian restaurant often frequented after hours of heavy drinking. So yes, it’s actually the perfect place to go unnoticed while discussing a massive plan.
Kilkenny: The choice of Anne Hathaway as the heist’s target seems brilliantly plotted; Hathaway’s always done a fantastic job in deliberately unlikable roles, including Rachel Getting Married and this year’s Colossal. She is also, for some reason, disliked by some on the Internet. Kudos to her for leaning into her dark side and embracing the role of an oblivious movie starlet. Rihanna could have hardly picked a better role to resuscitate her movie career (remember her shape-shifter Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets? Or don’t) than this one, where she gets to be smart, sly and apparently use her real Barbados accent. The name “8 Ball” is a little on the nose, but I guess we can’t have everything. Sarah Paulson’s role as a mother who goes on a “special work trip” was a nice touch that felt endemic to this film and its nearly all-female characters, rather than the original trilogy. I can already see her being the Matt Damon of the bunch, the straight(wo)man who nevertheless hides some surprising skill and cunning.
McMillan: I feel like Paulson and Kaling’s characters are subverting traditional roles for women in movies — the dutiful mother, the daughter getting nagged about being single — that feels broader than what happened in the other Ocean’s movies, but not entirely unwelcome. Between this and A Wrinkle in Time, I’m here for Mindy Kaling Takes Over Movies 2018, as unlikely as that might have seemed a couple years ago. Anne Hathaway as the new Andy Garcia is also something I will happily sign up for, for that matter.
Kilkenny: That Nicholas Britell of 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight is doing the soundtrack is interesting, given that the David Holmes soundtracks were so iconic in the first few movies. If the beats here are any indication, he’ll do a fine job.
Lee: One more thing: where are the random eating scenes? Who is the new Brad Pitt who is always gorgeously gnawing on a burger?
Ocean’s 8 hits theaters on June 8, 2018.
