Rex Reed tried hard to hate it - here's part of his review:

Ocean’s Eleven is brave, courageous, brilliant, audacious—-and preposterous.
It’s extremely confusing, but you quickly learn to ignore the details and just watch the
glam cast have fun. The film is no Rififi, but the costumes, accents, snafus, close calls and
James Bond gadgets hold interest. A perfect movie for undemanding, indiscriminate viewers
who require no more bang for their bucks than the sight of a lot of pretty people running around
in silly wigs, making fools of themselves and getting paid obscene amounts of money to do it.
 

Hey Rex, that underlined part?
Isn't that what show business is about?
Who wants to see ugly people with no make-up act responsibly for minimum wage?

And you say this is no Rififi?
Thank Koresh for that.

What the hell is a Rififi?

From the title, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to sit thru it,
and if it's Reed's idea of what all movies should be I hope I never find out.

But Reed is right about one thing: This isn't Pulp Fiction, it's not Godfather II.
This is Clooney and his friends doing a Mission Impossible kind of movie.

Clooney looked great in every frame, wish I could say the same about Julia.
That promo clip of her coming down the steps in that red Pretty Woman dress
is much shorter in the film, and the rest of the time her hair's in a bun and she's
being whatever the opposite of what glamorous is.  Worse still, in almost ever scene
she's lit up from beneath, and her nostrils look like Mammoth Caves in Kentucky.

Another thing they cheated on - in the film clip we've all seen 1,000 times, when the parole board
asks Clooney why he breaks the law and he says, "How much do you make in a year?"
That's not in the film, either.  Isn't that sorta like cheating?

Brad Pitt continues to impress me. I haven't seen a lot of his movies, but he was great in Spy Game
and he was really good in Ocean's Eleven. I had no idea Pitt could actually act. I thought he was
another Tom Cruise (Sorry, Brad) but I was wrong. He plays the brains of the outfit, while, for some
reason Matt Damon plays the wet-behind-the-ears idiot. I wonder if they arm wrestled to see who
got stuck doing the simpleton role?

Carl Reiner and Elliot Gould were both put to great use.  Don Cheadle had a thick-as-Oxblood-Soup
Cockney accent,  which was distracting, I thought. Andy Garcia gets as much screen time as anybody,
which is OK. I've liked him ever since he screamed, "I say we made 'em all dead," in Godfather III.

Besides the parts where they cheated, you get what the promos promise: Clooney and his pals pulling off
a big Vegas robbery - that is until the giant tidal wave flips their fishingboat over and they all die.
Besides that it's a fun movie.

Another unbilled star is The Bellagio.
The Bellagio is one of the finest hotels in the world, and it's just their bad luck that an
even finer hotel sits just down Las Vegas Blvd a few hundred feet - The Venetian!
As you may have guessed, it got me jonesing with Vegas Fever
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

BartCop, ...BartCop, ...
Come to Las Vegas, ...BartCop
 
 
 
 

The Mexican food at The Rio's Bamboleo is calling,
...BartCop, ...BartCop
 
 

Taqueria Cononita, Tequila's Fort Knox is calling,
Dozens of tequilas in 1/3 ounce shotglasses - perfect for taste-testing,

Come to Las Vegas, ...BartCop
 
 
 

The breakfast buffet at the Bellagio, the White Tigers at The Mirage
the Rollercoaster on top of the Stratosphere, the bubbling Mirage volcanoe*
the indoor thunderstorms at the brand new Aladdin, the Krispy Kreme,

...BartCop, ...BartCop
 
 

...BartCop, ...BartCop
Come to Las Vegas, ...BartCop

The Red Square Vodka Ice bar at The Mandalay Bay

...BartCop, ...BartCop
 

...BartCop, ...BartCop