Thank the fucking lord it's fall. Now the good movies are going to start rolling in.

And as all eyes turned to December, there was one movie that just about everyone in the country was brimming to see. The cast was out of this world, with enough cool humor and kitsch to reel anyone in. There's action, there's comedy, there's a lineup of actors that would bring the women in for miles around.

I'm speaking, of course, about Texas Rangers.

Put down the rifles, I'm kidding. I'm actually talking about Ocean's Eleven, possibly the most anticipated movie of the fall. So just how was it?

Well...

Ocean's Eleven is a movie that's all dressed up with no place to go. You have three of the most talented actors in Hollywood (George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Matt Damon) playing Cool Mastermind Guy, Cool Slick Guy, and Cool Brash Young Upstart, respectively. They, plus the usual assortment of various kinds of criminal experts (including Don Cheadle, with a British accent about as convincing as a seven-dollar bill), are going to bust into a vault that contains all the worldly riches of not one, not two, but three Las Vegas casinos. The opposition is the ruthless owner of the three casinos, Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia). Benedict. Benedict, oh by the way, also happens to be dating Clooney's ex-wife.

And that's pretty much the story.

Saying Ocean's Eleven is an exercise in style over substance isn't exactly a revelatory statement. The fact that the measures taken to break into this vault and then get the money back out again would easily cost as much (or more) than the actual score itself is immaterial. That Julia Roberts' role as Clooney's ex is just this side of ridiculously unnecessary is also ignored.

Were this a better movie, that would all be fine. Too bad, then, that Ocean's Eleven is merely above average. The wit and humor draws mostly chuckles and a few rare laughs, the visual style is good but not distinctive, and the performances are disappointingly competent instead of sparkling.

Score's pretty good, though.

So how could this happen? The cast list reads like a studio's wet dream: the aforementioned Clooney, Pitt, Damon, Garcia, Cheadle, and Roberts, then add Elliot Gould and Carl Reiner, with Oscar-winning Steven Soderbergh in the director's chair. We have kitsch, we have class, we have wit, and we have Vegas as the backdrop. How could this be anything less than cinematic gold? It would seem to be harder, in fact, to make a bad movie than a good one with those ingredients.

In the movie's defense, it is entertaining in its own way. The character interactions are fun to watch, and even if the performances are nothing to write the Academy about, it's great to see a bunch of talented, cool actors who are obviously having a great time chew on witty and corny dialogue. Vegas is fabulous to see through Hollywood's lens one more time (ever notice how every person in every movie ever made passes that "Fabulous Las Vegas" sign when going into town?). We are spared Matt Damon's character devolving into one of those stereotypical Brash Young Upstart characters so ubiquitous in heist movies. You know the type; the ones who screw shit up pretty much for the sake of screwing shit up and pissing off the old pro's.

So there you have it. The fall that was supposed to save us from the long line of disappointments in summertime ... gives us another disappointment. I suppose it speaks positively of a movie when my complaint is that it wasn't as cool as it could have been.

Still. What a shame.