This summer, we've had three part threes. With its overdose of villains, the Spider-Man series turned into a Joel Schumacher Batman movie. Shrek the Third was Far Far Away from its first installment, and the less said about Pirates 3, the better. Ocean's 13 is the best of the lot, a summer movie that's like a theme park ride. Fun while you're on it, forgettable when you get home, but you're still glad you went.

The screenplay, from the new team members Brian Koppelman and David Levien, moves fast and makes you laugh, partly because the elaborate plot often makes no seeming sense. But sense can be awfully overrated at times, particularly with an enterprise like this, which pushes at the limits of conventional narrative filmmaking, forcing your attention away from the story’s logical bricks and mortar toward its fields of dancing colors and a style that is its content.