Can they pull it off again? You betcha!

When is a filmmaker "at work" and when is he "on holiday", tinkering about, pursuing whims? With Steven Soderbergh, it's hard to decide. The films that Hollywood loves him for are the big- grossing Ocean's series: the flip, snazzy capers with George, Brad, Matt and their chums stepping into the debonaire loafers of Sinatra's Rat Pack. These hyper-slick hits allow Soderbergh to pursue his parallel career as art-house oddball, making one-off experiments such as the micro-budget small-town vignette Bubble (never released here, barely seen in the US) and ambitious stylistic explorations such as Solaris, his venture into metaphysical science fiction, and the recent black-and-white retro essay The Good German.

To Soderbergh's hardcore admirers, the latter comprise his "real" oeuvre, and it's quite possible that Soderbergh himself regards the Ocean's series as no more than an undemanding way to let off steam between bouts of high art. The Ocean's films are pitched as good- timey relaxation for all involved - not least, as a chance for their stars to swagger wryly through no-sweat, martini-fuelled romps while imitating a previous generation of hipsters (Frank, Dino, Sammy et al) who were also supposedly just goofing off. The idea that these films are nothing but one big party is born out by the information that, while shooting the series' latest instalment, Ocean's Thirteen, the cast could retreat to a luxurious on-set leisure lounge known as the Ocean's Club.

Yet, for all the jazzy insouciance of Ocean's Thirteen, someone is working extremely hard here: not least Soderbergh, who also photographed the film himself, under his usual pseudonym Peter Andrews. Ocean's Thirteen is hardly one of Soderbergh's "dress downFriday" movies, like the DV project Full Frontal, in which the actors supposedly drove to work in their own cars. No, this one is a mammoth production number, in which designer Philip Messina has turned one of Hollywood's biggest soundstages into a stunning, Xanadu-scaled casino set. It is such manifest effort and perfectionism on the production side that allows George Clooney and Brad Pitt to saunter through the affair breaking no more sweat than it takes to nibble a cocktail olive.

Even when their characters are supposedly pulling the most daring caper in Las Vegas history, the stars actually look like wealthy tourists strolling around and admiring the spectacular theme world that has been created just for them. The story has gambler and heistmeister Danny Ocean (Clooney) helping his old pal Reuben (Elliott Gould) get even after crooked magnate Willy Bank (Al Pacino) has bilked him out of a fortune. Willy has built Las Vegas's most opulent casino yet, a temple both to his own ego and to the great god Dollar, appropriately named the Bank; it's this Bank that Danny and his chums vow to break. The fact that, as we're repeatedly told, "it can't be done" is precisely what makes it worth doing: that's Rule No 1 of Caper Logic.

The game begins with the highest possible stakes, then raises them, and raises them further. There's an unbeatable super-computer involved, designed and operated by Julian Sands in Bill Nighy's spectacles (always a pleasure to see a Julian Sands cameo: it means someone has a healthy sense of the ridiculous).

The computer has to be momentarily disabled so that Ocean and his gang can essentially pull off their whole operation in no more than three minutes 20 seconds. There's also a display of the world's most precious diamonds, which can't possibly be lifted: when the gang's plans founder, they're bailed out by an old sparring partner whose deal-breaker is, naturally, that the diamonds must be lifted.

The byzantine plot machinery designed by writers Brian Koppelman and David Levien is minutely, flawlessly crafted: at least, it appears to be. It involves helicopters, loaded dice, an infestation of bedbugs, a small army of Asian gamblers, a simulated earthquake and the seduction of Ellen Barkin by Matt Damon in a false nose. In fact, there's so much barely comprehensible technical info imparted along the way that it's practically impossible to fathom what's going on or why - and that, presumably, is part of the design. As in Mission: Impossible (the 1960s TV series, and absolutely not the Tom Cruise movies), the pleasure lies in finally twigging what has been happening all along. It's less about complexity than the impression of complexity: it's about making us believe that Ocean and his cohorts have a masterly grasp of the big picture, even if we don't.

In its abundance of classy but hollow pleasures, Ocean's Thirteen oddly resembles Las Vegas itself, where if you don't like the gambling, there's Siegfried and Roy; if you don't like Siegfried and Roy, there's the all-you-can-eat shrimp buffet; if that makes you queasy, sleep it off on a king-sized mattress. Here you've got action, you've got acting, you've got one-liners that, if not exactly honed to brilliance, have the factitious sheen of plastic casino chips: they glitter even when they don't mean a great deal. (But you have to love the flash of second-hand Mamet in Pacino's bark: "I don't lose. People who bet on me to lose lose.")