Girls have fun in same-old story

Hathaway (Daphne) pokes fun at her real-life persona and Awkwafina almost steals the film as deadpan hustler Constance.

Faring less well are an under-utilised Mindy Kaling (Amita), Sarah Paulson (Tammy) and Rihanna (Nine Ball) and Gary Ross and Olivia Milch’s screenplay doesn’t get under the characters’ skins.

We don’t really know too much about any of them and while you can believe Debbie and Lou are old buddies, they’re missing that Clooney-Pitt magic from the original trilogy.

Ross, the man who launched The Hunger Games by helming the first flick in that series, also directs and while one of his cast does utter the line “a him gets noticed, a her gets ignored”, he doesn’t make a big deal out of the octet being all-female.

He let’s them be their own group of crafty criminals and wisely, despite pre-release speculation, keeps nods to the previous Ocean’s movies to a minimum.

The heist itself is thankfully a relatively simple one that’s easy for the audience to follow, unlike the labyrinthine goings-on in the increasingly silly and complicated Ocean’s Twelve and Thirteen.

But while it throws up a couple of surprises, the final 20 minutes, which include an out-of-place James Corden as a fraud investigator, feel tacked on.

Ocean’s 8 is a very serviceable, enjoyable and harmless reboot worthy of its place in the franchise.

Sadly, though, it’s lack of dramatic tension means you’ll probably forget you’ve seen it the next day.