Money never sleeps? Of course it doesn’t. Money doesn’t sleep. It has no eyes. But what does have eyes is what puts the moolah into the bank accounts of Hollywood. And that’s you and me. So, should you be parting with your hard earned cash (granted some of us make it easier than others..but not everyone is into goats) for the sequel to the 1987 Oliver Stone movie, Wall Street?
Directed and written by Oliver Stone (who’s as quick outta the traps as Michael Moore when it comes to current events) Wall Street 2 tells the story of the financial fiasco of recent times, to a degree, and follows a young wall street trader (LeBeouf) who teams up with all round bad, money man, Gordon Gekko (who's just out of prison, brick sized mobile phone in tow). The mission is to warn of the impending financial doom and to find out who was responsible for causing a suicide of LeBeouf’s financial mentor. Then there’s the sub-plot which involves Gekko trying to get back to speaking terms with his daughter, and of course Jake Moore (LeBeouf) plays a part in this. I don’t want to give much more away here, story wise; as it twists and turns as it goes, and for the best part, the twists are entirely predictable.
No doubt many, who loved the first one, will thunder off to see Gordon Gekko on the big screen one more time. But this is a different Gekko, or more so a different performance by Michael Douglas. Douglas doesn’t have a huge amount of screen time, sure he has a fair share but the bulk of your viewing will involve LeBeouf. But, the performance Douglas put’s in, is barely enough, as he dials in the performance which is cold and uninspiring to be honest, and won’t exactly send his stock skyrocketing.
Shia LeBeouf on the other hand is like a big stock market crash in his own right. Personally, I think LeBeouf (who is trying to shake the action kid vibe) is too nicey, nicey to be a Wall Street guy. Maybe that’s a bit harsh, but the guy looks like he would be more at home making apple pie than trading stocks. His performance is forced and contrived. In particular the teary scenes are just brutal. It’s like they sprayed him with a few liquidised onions and hoped for the best. He looks incredibly out of place here.
On a positive note, Carey Mulligan has sent her stock on the up and yet again proves she is a fantastic actress. Unlike the above, she is entirely believable and out performs her on screen colleagues time and time again. And Josh Brolin, who is kinda playing the bad guy, is also convincing here, and has certainly made up for Jonah Hex.
I’m not sure what kind of movie Oliver Stone has set out to make here. Is it trying to make a political statement about the finance sector and how shoddy it is and was? It does that to a point but at times gets a bit too complicated for it’s own good and you can quickly get lost and confused. Don’t expect to learn anything about the financial fiasco that went on, as this is more inspired from the debacle that happened and is still going on. It’s more of an Oliver Stone nod to what’s happening. If you want to watch a movie and learn a bit about the economic disaster, watch the end credits on The Other Guys.
To be fair though, credit where it’s due, at over 2 hours long it moves along at a pretty decent pace and some of the cinematography of NYC does look quite well. That said, the twists are predictable and the ending is a cheese fest of gruyere proportions.
So, Is greed still good? Well, it’s not bad, it’s not good, it’s just greed!
