Sat and watched the rental of Oceans 13 (on HD-DVD) tonite with Mrs. Terpfan1980.  We both enjoyed thoroughly enjoyed this one a lot.  We've seen all 3 of the movies in the trilogy and of the three, thought this might be the best.

Without spoiling the other movies, or this one, the thinking goes something like this:

First movie the cast was new, the twists (or lack thereof if you want to describe things that way) were unexpected and surprising, but things were somewhat difficult to follow as you watched (by design of course).

Second movie was a reunion of the original cast (plus Michael Douglas' squeeze Catherine Zeta Jones), but the plot and story got so convoluted that it was basically impossible to follow and enjoy.  For a franchise that thrives on the element of surprise they went way too far and were too smart for their own good.

Movie number 3, Oceans 13, actually benefits (addition by subtraction) by losing Julia Roberts.  No attack on Ms. Roberts (actually it's Mrs. somebody that I can't remember, but then again I don't think she changed her name), but after movie #2, losing her was a good thing.  Also missing from this movie, from the second movie, was Catherine Zeta Jones.  Both were apparently talked about in conversations running through parts of the movie, but that was about it for their characters.

With those two out, there's an aged and only borderline hawt Ellen Barkin playing second fiddle to new target Al 'hoooo-aaaaah (is that the scent of a woman I smell?)' Pacino as the female lead in the movie.  Actually with all due respect to Ms. Barkin, I probably should flat out say she's well over the border in the wrong direction, but I digress.  (At one point in time, I did consider Ms. Barkin in the 'smokin' category, but that's been some time ago and age seems to be catching up with her.  She looked nice in, well, to be blunt, the headlight area, but otherwise shows more signs of age than is good for a Hollywood starlet to let shine through.)

The crew from the first two movies is otherwise back and basically intact, and Andy Garcia shows up prominently as well.  Another character we've seen before shows up too, but I'll stop there and let viewers enjoy the surprises in that area.

The story is easier to follow this time but still quite enjoyable.  Watch the special features after you watch the movie for some deleted/extended scenes that fill in a few spots.  Unfortunately you aren't told where they fill in and have to go by memory to figure that out, but it's easy enough to tell.  Once you view them you'll quickly recognize that at least one of those scenes gives away far too much and had to be dropped to keep things surprising.  It's a great scene to help wrap things after, but definitely is better *out* of the movie than in.

Ocean's Thirteen is currently available only in COMBO disc format.  HD-DVD on one side, DVD on the other.  Not bad if you want to loan the movie to friends or family that haven't spent money on an HD-DVD player yet, but at the same time it rather stinks because the combo disc formatted items are about $5 - $10 more than HD-DVD only format discs are.  Warners gave up the combo format and has gone HD-DVD only for their newest titles, but sadly some studios haven't followed that lead.  I'd welcome the combo discs for their advantages if the studios weren't 'ripping me off' with a charge for both formats at the same time, but with that not the case, I'd just as soon see combo discs die-die-die already.

Picture quality is good.  Why just good, and not great?  Because Steven Soderberg (who directed this movie) has followed the path (or perhaps he had blazed it, hard to tell for sure) that a few other movies have with the grainy tones and images that aren't always as sharp as one would hope.  Not bad, but not crystal clear and ultra sharp.  Stylized perhaps, or perhaps just not the best choice for use of equipment and techniques that would shine through in the end.

Sound and audio drove me a little nuts and had me quickly turning on closed captions so that I could drop the overall volume level to one that wouldn't get too loud.  I'm not hard of hearing, but movies that work like this one make me think I am at times.  Conversation levels get too low when compared to background music that will literally blow your ears just moments later.  Again, I suspect somewhat that this is the style chosen by Soderberg, but it is frustrating as I'd prefer more consistent audio levels so I wouldn't be reaching for the remote constantly to adjust volume up, then down, then up again all within short periods of time.

Rated PG-13.  Some coarse language, but not really overly so.  Little or no actual violence in the film.  2 hours, 2 minutes running time, with a few hours worth of extra features on the disc, at least on the HD-DVD side.

In many ways, I'd love to own a copy of this title, and I might consider buying it later, but the current pricing turns me off at this point.  I've seen a few places with a somewhat reasonable $25 price point (approx.), but not many.  Most were in the $29 - $35 range for the HD-DVD/DVD combo formatted disc.

Also available on Blu-ray, reportedly with the same encoding on each version.  Reviews over at highdefdigest.com are virtually identical (actually it's a review that is common to both, but discusses differences between where necessary) for both formats.

Well worth a rental viewing in any format, especially if you enjoyed the 'original' remake of Oceans 11.  (Now that's a contradictory statement isn't it?)  Anyway, if you have the time to watch it, I expect it would be a fun diversion.