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Director: Oliver Stone
Screenwriters: Allan Loeb, Stephen Schiff
Starring: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin, Carey Mulligan, Eli Wallach, Susan Sarandon, Frank Langella
Synopsis
As the global economy teeters on the brink of disaster, Jake Moore (LaBeouf) who is a young Wall Street trader partners with disgraced former Wall Street corporate raider Gordon Gekko (Douglas) on a two-tiered mission: To alert the financial community to the coming doom, and to find out who was responsible for the death of the young trader's mentor.
Review This year, we have seen sequels of films that were released a decade ago, or even two. This summer came the release of Toy Story 3 (which made the franchise the best trilogy ever) and coming to the end of the year is the long-awaited sequel to the 28-year-old Tron. At the moment comes the return of Gordon Gekko, the role that got Michael Douglas the Oscar.
The original Wall Street back in 1987 was seen as the archetypal portrayal of 1980s excess, as well as its most memorable quote from Gekko: “Greed, for lack of a better word, is good”. On a personal level, it was partially seen as a father-son story, as it was about a young man (played by Charlie Sheen) desperate to succeed and eventually becomes involved with the villain of the piece, which then leads to a conflict between the young man and his blue-collared father.
Twenty-three years later, Stone returns to the stock market, in an attempt to bring back the character of Gekko, with his new quote: “Is greed good?” With the factual stock market crash that occurred recently as the basis of the story, we see these fictional characters reacting within the financial world which has become more chaotic, whilst Gekko tries to get both his groove and family life back.
When Stone started off his career, he was always making films that took their subject matter incredibly seriously and usually took over two hours to get their messages across to the audience. The original Wall Street did exactly this, and yet what Stone has done with this follow-up (as with World Trade Center) is soften the themes but without the dramatic tension.
As the first film depicted the stock market as fairly straightforward, in terms of how stockbrokers function and how money can lead to corruption, the second rambles on and awkwardly flows to what the financial world is, despite being a more complicated one. The film focuses more on Gekko’s return to society and attempting to reunite with his damaged daughter Winnie (played by Carey Mulligan) by partnering with her fiancé Jake who needs Gordon’s help.
Despite a beautifully-shot New York, nice software-like visuals and a nice handful of songs by David Byrne and Brian Eno, the direction tries to bring that 80s nostalgia to present day, but the result is fairly lame and nothing seems fresh. There are flashes that do remind you of the original (particularly a cameo from Charlie Sheen), but doesn’t succeed at going any further.
The big positive highlight towards this is the scenes that feature Michael Douglas in his repertoire as this was his Oscar-winning turn and reminds you how much of a demanding screen presence he is. Also, we see a new side to his character’s personality to give him more mpathy and yet still establishing his trademark slyness.
Whatever you might think of Shia LaBeouf (mostly negative from others), he is the only one who didn’t embarrass himself in the Transformers films and was great in Holes, which nearly everyone forgets. Although in this case, what LaBeouf plays here is an unsympathetic protagonist, whether it is the actions of the character or the choice in casting (sorry, Shia!), although does shine whenever he’s onscreen with the talented Carey Mulligan.
Verdict
Despite the charismatic figure that is Mr Douglas, the sequel fails to be as edgy as the original which knew what is was doing towards its themes, in which this lacks.
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Printable Version
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps - 
- I thought Charlie Sheen actually looked a bit fried. 
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