Review of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010) by Filipeneto — 14 Dec 2019

Honestly, I still don't understand why this movie exists.

This movie is the sequel to the movie "Wall Street" which Oliver Stone directed in the late eighties. It's strange for a sequel to be nearly twenty years away from the original, and if we look closely at the original movie, I honestly think it was not worth investing in this movie. In fact, comparing them is fatal for this movie, which is not even half the quality of the 1987 movie.

The film shows the return of Gordon Gekko, just out of prison where he paid for the stock fraud he committed, and the attempts of a young stockbroker to approach him, taking advantage of the fact that he is engaged to the daughter of the former financial shark. What we see next is highly predictable, and the slowness with which it happens does not help. It feels like the movie has been purposely stretched to last longer without the script having material to justify it.

Michael Douglas returns to his old character, Gekko, for more of the same. Okay, the character has evolved and looks softer, no longer the rude amoral bastard we saw in 1987. I think the prison stay and aging softened him, and Douglas tried to reflect that in the way he interpreted it. But whoever saw the original saw everything and will miss old Gekko. I also enjoyed the performance of Frank Langella, who gave birth to a responsible and sensible businessman who, trapped by finance sharks, chooses the one that seemed the only honorable way out. On the other hand, Shia LaBeouf and Carey Mulligan are obnoxious. LaBeouf spent the entire movie copying Charlie Sheen in the 1987 movie, which brings nothing new or original to this movie when compared to the previous one, and Mulligan had a cliché and depressing interpretation of a character she couldn't understand.

The film also no longer has the moralizing background that the previous one had. The previous movie, in fact, was able to show the darkest, most selfish side of the financial market, with speculation, greed, how a group of profiteers can break up whole firms and send hundreds of people out of unemployment just to make money. This movie forgets all this, puts it all behind the scenes, to accompany a bland family drama between Gekko, his daughter and the man who wants to marry her.

Personally, it was a disappointment. It was impossible for me not to compare the two films and this one inevitably lost out. Not even Douglas's performance totally saves this movie.