Walk into a Starbucks or a McDonald's in Nagoya, New York or Nairobi, and the odds are your frothy latte or spongy burger will taste exactly the same. That's what franchise food delivers: a safe and comfortingly familiar, almost identical experience every time.
The same could be said of franchise films; just look at "Ocean's Thirteen," the sequel to "Ocean's Twelve," which was itself the sequel to — you guessed it — "Ocean's Eleven." If you've seen either of the first two "Ocean's" movies, you sure don't need me to tell you what you'll be getting in "Thirteen."
Nevertheless, some weeks my job is to state the obvious. "Ocean's Thirteen" gives you George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Matt Damon in supersuave mode, a complicated and inventive casino heist with about a zillion little subplots, a bigger budget, and one new big-name actor in the credits: Al Pacino.