User reviews

I loved this movie until its final thirty minutes or so. During those thirty minutes you realize that Stone and his team of writers were searching desperately for a way to end the movie on a positive, hopeful note. We are left to plod along with them on this implausible track. Also, during the ending Gekko's daughter's character consistency is shot to hell and she appears as venal as the characters against whom she rails.

Those moments are especially disappointing because I believed that this movie had the potential to be Stone's best film ever. Carey Mulligan and Michael Douglas in particular delivered great performances. Shia Lebeouf is "good enough." The writing is fairly unpredictable then everything seems to be tied into a nice bundle near the end. The problem was that Stone couldn't quite bring himself to put the bow on that bundle. He wanted to add a bit of glitter to it, which seemed gaudy and completely out of place.

Bottom line: if this movie had ended on a somewhat dark note it would have reflected the reality of modern day Wall Street, and it would have made for a tighter, better movie.

It's worth watching, and if you liked the first Wall Street it probably won't disappoint you. You might want to leave during its third act, though :)

I wouldn't go as far to say that a Wall Street sequel was "long overdue" but it was more or less necessary due to the open ending of the first film. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps takes place more than twenty years after the events of the first film. Gordon Gekko is now getting out of prison after serving an eight year term for trading insider information. He meets a young Wall Street broker named Jake Moore, who is also his future son-in-law. He sees Jake's ambition and decides to aid him in his climbing of the Wall Street ladder. But, as would be expected from the sly Mr. Gekko, he has other intentions and we see almost a repeat of the first film, just set in the future coinciding with the 2008 stock market crash. It seems unoriginal but I think the only reason it works is because it is a fairly intriguing alternate reality take on an event we all witnessed.

This film starts out promising enough. Seeing Michael Douglas reprising his role as the infamous Gordon Gekkos is pleasing and putting his character in these modern times is interesting, as he is now no longer a huge name on Wall Street, and there are now crooks way more greedy than he ever was. The introduction of all the new characters is also interesting. Shia LaBeouf plays his eager young Wall Street fast talker role fairly well, not as well as Charlie Sheen from the original, but it's not bad. Carey Mulligan is as beautiful as ever and does a great job as Winnie Gekko, Gordon's daughter. Frank Langella even has a brief role as an older stock broker who doesn't have anything left to live for after the crash. However, great performances can only take a film so far.

What Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps suffers from the most is just being really boring. It starts out so interesting and promising, but as the plot develops it eventually stops going anywhere and flat lines. This film doesn't help out the non-stock broker types like the original did. You have to know the lingo and you have to understand how Wall Street works and you need a lot of back story on the 2008 financial crash. I myself understand these things to a certain degree, but this film just moves too fast and doesn't let you keep up with the lingo and the fast talking. And so once you get behind you're behind for the whole film. I understood enough to follow the gist of the plot, but I also think that it is just too dull of a plot to really be that enticing whether you understand it or not. For a film that is over two hours long, it really goes nowhere after a certain point.

This isn't a terrible film, but it just doesn't really amount to much. There are some good things about it, like all the performances as well as Oliver Stone's direction. He pulls off some slick editing that gives the film a more technologically hip feel to it. If the film had kept with this same pace from start to finish it probably would have been a lot better. But when you boil it down there isn't much to see here and your mind moves right along as soon as the credits role.

SPOILER WARNING

I'm afraid I have to add my voice to the others who have made negative comments on this film. I finally got to see it on HBO and just barely got through it. An absolutely dreadful sequel.

The story should have picked up where the first left off. I actually felt sorry for Bud Fox at the end as he walked into prison. Now I find out that everything just went swimmingly and he's now a multi millionaire after selling the airline that was so much a focus of the original story. A huge insult to all of us and an embarrassment to Charlie Sheen, as if he needed another one, in a cameo that had no point other than to wreck the character from the first Wall Street.

Don't like any of the actors here. Really miss Martin Sheen who always adds something in whatever he is in. Have no interest in the main characters this time around and I agree that Michael Douglas looks as if he can't stay awake and I don't blame him.

Sequels are virtually never any good. Once you catch lightning in a bottle, you don't go out and stand in a field in a rainstorm hoping you can do it again without getting electrocuted. Oliver Stone did himself and his reputation nothing but harm in this pointless, witless and uninteresting tale.

Director Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas. Again. Twenty years later. Gecko is out of jail. And he wants to work a deal with Jake, his daughter's boyfriend (Shia LeBeuf). Frank Langella is Lou, the old stock pro at his office. Susan Sarandon (Janet ! In rocky horror) is mom. John Mailer and Josh Brolin are in here. Check out austin pendleton, who was so awesome in Whats up Doc and Skidoo (they are both incredible films, if you haven't seen them.) lots of music by David Byrne, Brian Eno. More shenanigans in the stock markets... Gecko says he just wants to have a good relationship with his daughter, but he seems to be manipulating the boyfriend. To what end....? What's more important... money? Revenge? Or does he really just want to be on good terms with his daughter? Michael Douglas won the oscar for part one, but no oscars for this one. Interesting that acc to imdb, this was filmed at the end of 2009, just a few months AFTER the actual bottom of the economic crash of 2008, 2009. This one was just okay; doesn't have the impact or power of the first one.

Having waited impatiently over a year to see this film I found it disappointing. I will tell you why.

Firstly, Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas always said they were amazed that Gordon Gekko was an inspiration for many a man to take up a job on Wall Street. Gekko had been intended to be a repulsive character representing greed. The fact that he was, in fact so inspirational was the reason that Wall St was such a hit. In the new film Gekko's edginess is gone. He seems almost human, and save a couple of good lines, he is an inspiration for nobody.

Second, The financial crisis has provided remarkable material that could have been made into a fast moving and exciting storyline similar to the first film. Instead Oliver Stone has chosen to tell a moral tale. The trouble is the character that Stone holds up as a helpless victim deserved his fate and Gekko also makes a choice that is supposedly the moral one but he does it only because he can afford to.

The message in the story? For me it's just that nobody knows what is moral any more, not even people who make films about morality.

Should you watch it? Yes, it's engaging and fun but don't expect the wheeling, dealing testosterone of the first film. This is a story about people, not deal making. It's just OK.

The claim that this sequel is purely a cash-grabbing endeavour couldn't be more off target. Oliver Stone has knocked back script after script for possible follow ups to his 80's classic and it's clear throughout Money that he has put his heart and soul into a story that he has felt worthy of sharing the Wall Street moniker. Stone, as always, is over indulgent at times, but there's no denying his passion in making a Wall Street for the new generation. "Greed is good" may have been the ostensible motto of the first film (in fact the connotation was the exact opposite, but many easily-strayed, quixotic viewers took it at face value) however there's no chance of missing the point this time around, the message is loud and clear: greed, for lack of a better word, is not good.

It's a shame then, that the Platoon director is too caught up in decorating the absorbing content with unnecessary visual flair. Whether it's to appease the MTV generation or simply because the 64 y.o. filmmaker is becoming more compromising in his methods, the TV-style scene separators that Stone employs – a whirring 24 hours in 30 secs landscape shot, digital financial figures weaving through the city – are completely unwelcome. Then there is the motorbike race at the end of the second act. How this dreadfully misplaced sequence didn't get excised in the editing suite is mind-boggling. These little hiccups tot up over the runtime and get increasingly frustrating, becoming a major detriment to this otherwise decent movie.

The return of Michael Douglas to the role that garnered him an Oscar over two decades ago was always going to gain the majority of anticipation and he doesn't disappoint. He portrays the supposedly penitent Gekko as a man who is just as self-aggrandizing as he was 23 years ago, but with the newfound characteristic of subtlety, if not humility. Having said that, it's Shia LeBeouf who makes the greatest impact. The Transformers star has already demonstrated he's a genuine acting talent in the lesser seen A Guide to Recognising Your Saints and The Greatest Game Ever Played, although this is his first shot at a mainstream drama. LeBeouf's natural charisma is challenged by a vulnerable side we've not seen in any of his previous roles and it's a leap he handles with ease. He may yet be one of those rare actors who can effectively segue between huge movie star and terrific thespian.

The eminently watchable cast and captivating subject matter guarantees cinematic satisfaction, even if its dampened by Stone's persistently needless visual flourishes.

3 out of 5 (1 - Rubbish, 2 - Ordinary, 3 - Good, 4 - Excellent, 5 - Classic)

"…greed, for lack of a better word, is good."

The classic line delivered by the wicked financial wizard Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone's 1987 classic Wall Street has become immortalised as one of the most popular movie quotes in the history of American cinema. Unfortunately, there is nothing memorable in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.

Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is out of federal prison, following eight years of incarceration for insider trading. The film begins in 2008, just before the global financial crisis, and Gekko is on a mission to warn the public of the imminent economic meltdown. After one of his speeches, Gekko is approached by Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf), who tells him that he is going to marry his estranged daughter Winnie Gekko (Carey Mulligan).

From thereon, the film splits in two directions. The main plot involves Gekko trying to reunite with his daughter through Jake. This story is supposed to be a love/family theme within the film's financial backdrop. This is the most problematic and truly unnecessary part of the film. Instead of Oliver Stone digging deep and examining the failings of the capitalist system and truly condemning the culture of 'moral hazard' displayed by the big financial institutions, he goes for sentimentality. Stone who has directed such classics as Platoon (1986), Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and JKF (1991), is way below par with his latest project.

The other more interesting and stronger side of the film is the financial stuff we see, mostly through Jake's eyes, a young Wall Street guy who is living and breathing in the toxic environment of subprime mortgages, leveraged finance and good old fashioned egomaniacal greed of Corporate America.

The biggest strength of the original film was Michael Douglas (on Oscar Winning form), who tore up the screen with his presence. In this film, Douglas is underused, and it is a shame because he is the best thing in the film.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps does not know what it is trying to say, and it goes soft at the end, failing to convey a message on the 2008 'Great Recession' and the culprits behind it. Ooh yeah, and the ending sucks…

VERDICT: 6/10 (Mild Recommendation).

Twenty-three years ago, Oliver Stone's Wall Street (1987) came out at a time when the world was reeling from the shock of an economic crisis defined by Black Monday, the day of 19 October 1987 when the global stock market suffered the largest one-day percentage decline. Stone's movie introduced audiences to a world that was largely alien to many-, a world hidden inside the Ivory Towers of our financial institutions- and more significantly, to the people behind these institutions whom his lead character Gordon Gecko represented.

"Greed is good!" said Gordon, a by-now iconic line that no doubt inadvertently served as inspiration for stock traders since then. And apparently, that greed has been left unchecked for the past 23 years- where Gordon himself aptly observes- it has since become legal. Like its predecessor, "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" comes at a time when the world is still reeling from the shock of an economic crisis, one that has since been dubbed the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. So despite coming more than two decades after Michael Douglas career-defining (read: Academy Award) performance, there's really no question whether or not this sequel is still relevant.

It is, and very much so in fact, as Stone's savvy writers Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff have skilfully adapted the real-life fates of Bear Sterns and JP Morgan into Keller Zabel Investments (KWI) and Churchill Schwartz respectively for the film. KWI is where young hotshot Jake Moore works at- one of its lion head founders Louis Zabel (Frank Langella) like a father figure to him. But the crisis takes its toll on KWI and as its stock price plunges, the bank finds itself in meetings with the Federal Reserve Board, mirroring the fate of Bear Sterns right down to the paltry single-digit share price negotiated by the government for JP Morgan.

Zabel succumbs to the pressure and commits suicide, leading Jake to set his sights on Schwartz's head honcho Bretton James (Josh Brolin), the arrogant manipulator responsible for proposing the ludicrous buyout package to Zabel. Jake gains Bretton's trust by displaying his financial acumen, and a large part of the subsequent cat-and-mouse game depends on your understanding of certain inherently complex economic concepts like sub-prime mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps. Through graphs on the New York skyline, split-screens and TV news clips, Stone tries his best to explain these concepts to his audience- though despite his efforts, unless you're a finance major, you're unlikely to comprehend all the intricacies.

Still, you're likely to grasp more than enough to gasp at the absurdities behind the financial apocalypse- the power-players behind the banks whose greed precipitated the crisis in the first place, the brokering with the Federal Reserve for more liquidity in order to keep them afloat (we're too big to fail they say) and the sheer ignorance of their own level of exposure. Stone does not disguise his own leanings on the subject (even appearing in a brief cameo) but he knows better than to preach to his audience or get in the way of what already is compelling by virtue of its authenticity.

This sequel is also richer for expanding on the representations in the earlier film. Bretton is the new Gekko, the new breed of smarmy Wall Street sharks whose unbridled greed for money thrives in shades of grey and 'moral hazards'. Gekko on the other hand has become somewhat of a mentor for Jake, the Charlie Sheen-Bud Fox equivalent in this sequel. His ambition no means diminished, Gekko is the older generation whose instincts are sharper and shrewder- his observations on the current state of the financial crisis accurate and critical. And Jake is the proverbial hotshot hoping to make his name, the finance majors who go from the classrooms of the Ivy League colleges into the offices of the big names on Wall Street.

Against this backdrop, Stone weaves in a strong family story. Jake's fiancé, Winnie (Carey Mulligan) estranged from her father, Gekko, blames him for the death of her brother. While Jake tries to patch relations between Winnie and Gekko, he has intentions of his own seeking advice from Gekko behind Winnie's back. Each of these characters and their motivations are nicely fleshed out, and the twists and turns of their fates are food for thought of the often polarising choices between family and money and its concomitant consequences.

Stone also has a great cast assembled for the film. With a grayer head of hair, Michael Douglas returns in excellent form as Gordon Gekko, bringing a fresh sensibility to his role brought on by the years of experience. Shia LaBeouf acquits himself admirably in a dramatic role that doesn't require him to get jumpy the way he usually acts (see Transformers and Indiana Jones). Carey Mulligan is heartbreakingly good as the moral centre of the film. Brolin- fresh off Stone's last film W.- more than fills the shoes as the villain-equivalent Gordon here. Other veterans like Susan Sarandon as Jake's mother and Eli Wallach as Schwartz's patriarch steal the brief scenes they are in.

But the greatest praise should be reserved for Oliver Stone, whose return to Wall Street finds him at his most assured and confident for many years. He directs with the proceedings with brio and verve, accompanied by an appropriately retro soundtrack by David Bryne and Brian Eno, as well as Rodrigo Prieto's luscious cinematography. Just as admirable was his patience at holding back this sequel until 23 years later, a wait that has proved astute in providing the film with a keen sense of relevance. Not only is it relevant, it is also important as a cautionary tale- even more so if one ponders the stronghold our financial institutions have over all our businesses and activities today, including the very financing of this film.

It's 2008, 7 years after Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) got out of prison, and he's hocking his book. Meanwhile Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) is trying direct investments into a new energy source. But the financial crisis is crashing his own workplace Keller Zabel Investments. His mentor Louis Zabel (Frank Langella) commits suicide. Jake marries Winnie Gekko (Carey Mulligan), and teams up with Gordon Gekko to bring down Bretton James (Josh Brolin) who destroyed his mentor.

This feels fake. There are better and more realistic and quite frankly documentaries about the 2008 financial meltdown. Others have explained it better. Hearing Gordon Gekko talking about it is like somebody trying to make poetry out of finance. The problem is that Oliver Stone is trying to inject a fictional story into something that's all too real. It amounts to a whole lot of meaningless gobbledygook. The story is nothing but trash. All that we have left to watch for are some fairly good performances.

I have mentioned before that director Oliver Stone seriously thought about retiring after Natural Born Killers. That movie took so much out of him (and I think the previous JFK did also in the aftermath of that film), that he said: "I don't think I have another one in me". At that time I thought he was crazy. But looking back at what he has made since NBK. Maybe not… Stone's new film has 3 maybe 4 good scenes and all of them were in the trailer. The scenes of the release of Gekko are well done and set up for a nice premise. But it all just falls apart. Or it really never gets going. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps fits perfectly in the new Oliver Stone trend. Before 1994, his films were raw, edgy and a little rebellious. World Trade Center, W. and Wall Street 2 all have the appearance of politically engaging or hard-hitting films. But they are not. Tame would be an understatement. Pleasing would be better. Oliver Stone has lost his will to fight. He's got bills (probably a big house, swimming pool, alimony and stuff). He just wants a job and please the studio and the audience. It almost looks like he doesn't want much hassle with his films after they come out.

Wall Street 2 is such a disappointment I don't know where to start. Maybe the biggest let down was in the smallest amount of celluloid: the cameo of Charlie Sheen as Bud Fox. His character Fox was a character we could relate to. Especially in his scene with his father Martin Sheen. But his cameo was so wrong, so out of place, so not Bud Fox, it diminishes the entire first movie. Bud Fox is now Charlie from Two and a Half Man.

Let me go on with the characters: The successor of Bud Fox is now Jake Moore, a kid who doesn't blink when he gets a 1.5 million dollar bonus. Off course, in the banking industry this is normal. So, it is authentic that Jake doesn't flinch. His girlfriend has an Iphone, does something with a website but other then that they really don't have to work for a living seeing the house they live in. Live really has no challenges left for these two. So maybe that why Jake has such a hard on for his 'Green Project'. But I'm just guessing here. Bud Fox wanted to be filthy rich, he wanted to be a player. Jake Moore doesn't want anything. And we should watch for him for 2 somewhat hours… Josh Brolin, the actor with the single most dangerous look in Hollywood, comes off as such a whiny boy. You do not believe he is the successor of Gordon Gekko. One or two times Shia LaBoeuf's character Jake Moore went head to head with Brolin and I couldn't help but think: "This is so unbelievable. Brolin's character should clock this spoiled brat right on the nose". If anyone can tell me what value or what message I should take from the motorcycle-scene: you can e-mail me.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps misses edge, a believable script and ditto characters. It is a missed opportunity at best, and a total failure if I am really honest. It demises it's classic predecessor, has a weak script where the cutthroat mentality in the banking industry is played out in such a cliché manner. Josh Brolin is grossly underused. Shia LaBoeuf is overplayed, because he's not that great an actor. Not as a serious adult anyway. But that's Stone's fault. Charlie Sheen isn't a great actor, but 20 years ago Stone could direct him in a way that made him believable. That Oliver Stone is no more, as you can see with the awful cameo of Sheen. The problem for this sequel is that it totally diminishes the first film. It takes all the good things from the first film and throws it out. What's left is chewed up, spit out and rehashed. Money never sleeps, but the audience does.

I was looking forward to seeing what Oliver Stone & the ensemble he got together could do with an updated version of an even greedier Wall Street that was gambling with obscene amounts of money & making their own rules that the S.E.C. didn't do anything about or even try to understand it seems.

I was very disappointed. This follow up didn't fare well against the original...which is almost always the case. But with Stone directing again & Douglas in again...I thought this may have a chance. Some part 2's are just laughable...I guess they make money or they would stop doing them. The big exception of course was "The Godfather part 2".

Anyway - this movie just didn't have the snap, crackle & pop of the original. And I think the movie spent way too much time on the Jake & Winnie relationship played by Shia LaBeouf (wasn't that Glenn Campbell's name in the original "True Grit", well....maybe it was LaBeef) & Carey Mulligan. By the way...very sad about Campbell's Alzheimers admission.

When I saw this movie I knew that LaBeouf had been in a lot of Hollywood movies & must have been well thought of....but it was the 1st movie I had seen him in. I thought he did OK with the part he was given. But Mulligan was such an annoying character as Winnie....or was it Whiney? Every time she was in a scene it was like fingernails on a blackboard. Did anybody else feel that way about Mulligan's performance?

And as others have said...the ending was just not very good.

Former powerbroker Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) has been laying low. Well, he's been laying in a prison and plotting a comeback. After release he gets to promoting his latest book and comes across young trader Jake Moore (Shia LeBeouf), who happens to be engaged to his daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan). While Gordon wants to redeem himself in his daughter's eyes, Jake is looking for some insight to plot revenge against high roller Bretton James (Josh Brolin), the man who shut down his old firm.

Has it really been a year since we last crossed paths with The Beef? I'd say he's grown, but Shia has always struck me as near 20 because I never saw his show Even Stevens. As Jake he's mature and goal driven, but I don't sense the authority that Charlie Sheen gave Bud Fox despite the nearly identical character. As before, the sea is parted for Gordon Gekko to grab focus. He has the best lines, he's the draw, and Michael Douglas owns him.

The exposition may require insider trading to clear up the jargon, but there is no doubt that the editing takes too many liberties for a movie aimed at adults. This isn't Scott Pilgrim. It isn't necessary to throw animations at the screen during a simple explanation over machinery. What really cooks my bacon is a short scene with Jake and Minnie in a car. Jake's phone rings and not only does the woman he's speaking with float into view but a little instant messaging derived sound effect completes the effect. Much of the first act is scarred with these moments of narrative breaking indulgence.

In recent years the trend of sequel hunting has found ways to dust off the cobwebs and in a few cases the characters don't behave the way we expect them to the second time around. In Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps an effort is made to humanize Gordon and though I found some of his actions out of character, the idea that people can change seems to be a big message behind the film. From my experience it seems that some folks change while others get worse, and I had Mr. Gekko pegged for the latter. Regardless, his actions have to fit your personal philosophy for you to deem them believable and I felt that too often he went outside the established persona.

On the second pass there isn't a lot of surprise and the awe of trading stock isn't quite what it used to be. You don't even get to see the floor, and if Stone had focused on it I'm sure the audience would be less than amped thanks to the digital revolution reducing the paper streams and shouting. Otherwise there isn't enough new in the way of story and liberties taken in presenting it are overbearing. The original didn't need cheeseball editing effects to lift the audience out of slumber; pity the new generation is deemed so short in temper.

After a 23-year wait Oliver Stone has made his first sequel ever to his 1987 film Wall Street. With recent events involving the banking crisis, sub-prime mortgages and toxic debt a film with Gordon Gekko is timely.

Set in 2008 just before and during the financial crisis Jacob Moore (Shia LaBeouf) is a ambitious young trader who specialised in investing alternative energy. He lives with Winnie Gekko (Carey Mulligan), who runs a left-wing website and has a hostile relationship with her father, Gordon (Michael Douglas). When Jacob's bank collapses, his mentor and father figure Louis Zabel (Frank Langella) kills himself when he is humiliated by the head of another bank, Bretton James (Josh Brolin). Gordon Gekko starts to predict the impending banking crisis and Jacob turns to the old banker for help. Jacob promises to help Gekko get back in touch with his daughter and Gekko and give Gekko would give the young man the dirt on James. But James promises that he can help Jacob get the investment a company making fusion energy.

Gordon Gekko was one of the most iconic characters of the 1980s and one of Douglas most well known roles. He was a symbol of the 80s, about the idea of making a shed lot of money from investing in other businesses. He is a figure of love or hate depending on your views on the stock market and the Reganite economic system. In Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps he is now a antihero, who works with Jacob to bring down the worst elements of the new banking system where debt was sold in a way to avoid 'risk', but really just masking a problem. Douglas really dominates the role and was the key to the film, someone who does get down and dirty but Stone and the writers do try to humanise him. But Gekko is best when he is his old self. Still Douglas is best thing about the film.

Stone recruits a good cast: Mulligan, Brolin and Susan Sarandon. But it was LaBeouf who is the star of film. He is obviously trying to show he is more then the star of the Transformers film and he actually starring in a prestige picture. He gives a solid performance and he will properly will become a better actor then Megan Fox (who star is already declining). There were some really good flashes from LaBeouf like when he is upset over Lou's death, but he was wooden at other times. Mulligan gives a very good performance and her American accent was flawless. And well, Brolin has been a strong actor for a years and his performance was good.

Stone had an interesting approach to directing this film: the camera work that Rodrigo Prieto used was effective, moving at the camera at just the right time to reflect an emotion or keep a scene of continuity. Some people have complained that Stone should not have put numbers flash on the screen or using split screen but I feel it adds to the sense of the work in a investment bank. Though it was weird in one scene where Jacob takes a phone call in and the person on the other ends comes up as a bubble on top of Winnie's head in a almost cartoon like way. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is also a film had to make visual, with a lot of computer graphics being use and the show of how fusion energy would work: making the film look like something from a Saturday morning sci-fi cartoon. Stone also had to add a motorbike chase just to make something more exciting. The film is too long and slow at times, whilst the ending and final third felt rushed, unrealistic and hokey in a typical Hollywood fashion.

Stone does try and make banking an interest and it is a good commentary of the banking crisis. But nowadays most stockbrokers are just men and women who stare at figures on a computer screen and trading invisible stocks, not caring or knowing how it affects people. Stone could have shown more about how bankers ended up going to the government for help to allow them to survive and then rewarded themselves with a nice big bonus with public money. Mark Kermode mention that one of the big themes of Wall Street was that there was a conflict between people who made money to people who made thing: in the sequel a similar theme, involving invest in things that involve the lives of people and society to other men and women who just look for a quick buck rather then look at the long term game. It is possible for people to make more money from a long term investment. As a environmentalist I want to see oil company collapse very quickly when alternatives are viable.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps will mostly appeal to people are interested in economics and banking, but there is enough there for other people.

Greetings again from the darkness. The much anticipated sequel to the 1987 original has Oliver Stone back in the director's seat and one of the most iconic characters in movie history, Gordon Gekko, being released from prison. Michael Douglas is back as GG and the film opens with his release from prison ... with no one there to pick him up. He is truly on his own.

Skip ahead a few years and we see Shia LeBeouf as Jake, a Wall Street hotshot working for Frank Langella, a Wall Street legend. It is very obvious that this legend, and Jake's mentor, is in deep trouble and the entire market is pretty wobbly. Sound familiar? Yep, it's 2008. Ahh yes, the juicy part ... Jake is getting engaged to the lovely Winnie (Carey Mulligan) who just happens to be Gordon Gekko's estranged daughter. Now we're rolling!

Turns out, the dirty tricks and back room deals didn't stop while Gekko was incarcerated. Josh Brolin plays a high roller for a thinly disguised firm that most will recognize as Goldman Sachs. Brolin thinks he was wronged a few years back by Langella and can't wait to get even when the opportunity presents itself in a meeting with the Treasury Secretary. Sound deliciously nasty? Well not so fast.

The movie steers away from much of the back-stabbing and dirty deal making that was so prevalent in the original. It even avoids much commentary on the scuzzy financial services industry leaders who managed to profit while all of our retirement plans and home values were plummeting. Instead, we get much melodramatic, sappy conversation about feelings and family and time. Apparently Gekko found a semblance of a soul while in prison. He's certainly not perfect, but this is not the wheeler-dealer that was so much fun to hiss in part one.

Oliver Stone tosses in some touches that help: Charlie Sheen reprises his Bud Fox role for a brief encounter with Gekko, there are some terrific shots of NYC and we get Sylvia Miles back as the Realtor - this time helping Jake dump his loft in a soft market. We even get 95 year old Eli Wallach whistling his way through a power role, complete with Jake's ringer playing the theme song to "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly". All fun aspects, but they don't offset the inordinate number of times we get people choking up and crying. Had to check the credits to see if Nora Ephron was co-director.

Bottom line, if you enjoyed the original, you probably owe it to yourself to see how Gekko has come full circle. The ride is fine, just not at the same level as we were treated 23 years ago.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps isn't the sharp, critical film that its makers want you to think of it as. The sequel to the supremely influential, endlessly quotable original from the 80's is a dull whimper about what triggered the present financial meltdown and though it's cut from the same cloth as the original, it possess all of the bark yet, sadly, none of the bite.

Gordon Gekko is a name that defined an era. Played by Michael Douglas twenty three years ago, he reverberated in the minds of viewers as a ruthless, amoral investor without a soul. Years later, the sequel finds him released after serving his prison sentence. Cut to seven years after his release, and its 2008, the dawn of the financial crisis. Gekko is now known as a speaker publicly vilifying the notion of greed in corporate America while simultaneously, and some would reckon quite ironically, publicizing his book inspiringly titled "Is Greed Good". A loner who travels in subways, he is estranged from his daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan, androgynously unglamorous) who is engaged to a young trader named Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf). Jake bumps into Gekko at one of his speeches (the films finest scene) and the two form a mentor-protégé relationship that irks Winnie but allows Jake to benefit by plotting revenge from Bretton James (Josh Brolin, the films principle villain), suspected of being responsible for the suicide of Louis Zabel, a close friend and confidant of Jake.

If the film sounds like a mess of relationships, then it is. As muddled as Stone's own political activism it has no clarity on what its trying to say. From trying to rationalize the reasons behind the market crash to the impulsive nature of human behaviour, it doesn't get either right. Not helping are the actors that Stone assembles. It's a mystery to me why Shia LaBeouf is constantly being thrust down viewer throats in film after film by studios convinced he is the next best thing. He is not, and despite being dressed up in expensive designer garb, cannot pass off as being anything more convincing than a working intern. His relationship with Gekko has none of the enticing quality that Charlie Sheen's Bud Fox did and a cameo appearance by Sheen only underscores this disparity. Douglas himself has none of the limelight. He has some powerful lines, but feels largely sidelined by the revenge/relationship/murder subplots and behaves uncharacteristically, especially in the very last scene (these were probably added as an afterthought). After showing some promise of returning to his incendiary, often infuriating filmmaking style and point of view with his previous film W, director Stone seems to have gone back to being comfortable working with drab studio approved material.

Not only was the original Wall Street a tremendously entertaining film, but one that was blessed with the critical foresight of its maker. The sequel partially entertains but does not have a new perspective. It is neither critical nor insightful and could have, with the same script and actors, been the work of a lesser director than Stone. The films themes are also impersonal - none of the characters suffer directly from the financial crisis the way they did in the original, they suffer from their own incompetent decision making, a sharp departure from how the original handled and fused stock trading with personal loss and gain.

I found this movie to begin slowly, but it started to get slightly better quickly. This movie could have been really great if it was allowed to grow in the development of the story. The story focuses a lot more on Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) than on Gordon Gekko (Michale Douglas) which isn't a bad thing but Gekko should have been in it more. The film starts out with Gekko coming out of prison which is 7 years later. The character of Jake Moore was pretty good, his intentions were convincing, but Winnie (Carey Mulligan) wasn't great. Her character didn't seem to fit in well with the story and it dragged on. She became very annoying quickly because she was mostly crying/tearing out. Also the film showed too much of romance between Jake and Winnie. Also Gordon Gekko didn't seem the same compared to the original. In this one, he changes for the better and seems to have learn his lesson. The ending shows this instance. Overall, the film should have been much better than it was.

More than twenty years after Wall Street (1987), director Oliver Stone brings Gordon Gekko back to the big screen. Michael Douglas reprises his screen-stealing role as Gekko, and is one of many talented actors who make up the strong cast, which include Carey Mulligan (An Education, 2009), Frank Langella (Frost/Nixon, 2008), Josh Brolin (No Country For Old Men, 2007), and Shia LeBeouf (Transformers, 2007). Charlie Sheen, who played Bud Fox, a lead character in Wall Street, also makes a cameo appearance.

Money Never Sleeps is, in my view, a more entertaining picture than its prequel, which is occasionally quite dull although it remains to be an important film. In the sequel, Stone focuses more on the stories of the characters and less on jargonized depiction of the inner workings of the financial industry. In a way, Money Never Sleeps could be described as a conventional love story set in the backdrop of the recent global financial meltdown that left many fuming over the unethical behavior of (mostly Western) big-shots who handle and trade greenbacks for a living.

In Wall Street, Gekko was the epitomized figure of greed, played with charismatic vigor by Douglas. Here, he takes on the role of a "wise sage", someone who has experienced the terrible consequences of greed, but despite that, shows that he is still not infallible. What is greed, really? An emotional response to the temptation caused by the "this is not enough" syndrome? Or is it a rapacious mental desire for excesses? Why does greed manifest more prominently in some people, especially (and ironically) in those who have it all?

Using gimmicky but still relevant editing techniques like the "split-screen" effect to emphasize on the continuous and hurried interaction among stock traders and brokers, Stone succeeds to a certain extent in depicting the frenzied drama of chronic phone-calling, and "time is money" mentality that characterize these people. This is contrasted with scenes of important men in smart suits deliberating (non-productively, I wish to add) over the courses of action to save the nation's floundering economy.

Much of Stone's film is paced leisurely, and may bore viewers who show disinterest in anything dealing with "sub-primes and what not", and are only attracted to the film because of the cast. The fine performances, especially that of Mulligan and Douglas, help pull the film through a few of the more tepid parts. Not as incisive and critical as Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps nevertheless is a decent enough film to warrant a casual viewing.

SCORE: 7.5/10 (www.filmnomenon.blogspot.com) All rights reserved!

Nowhere near as good as original. Why? Douglas is out to burn his back pages from those heady "Greed Is Good" days by writing a best-selling book that turns it into a question ("Is Greed Good?"). He then meets up with an ambitious young stockbroker (Shia LeBeouf) who, as it turns out, not only admires him but is intent on marrying his daughter (Carey Mulligan) who, at the moment, isn't about to get back to her disgraced father. But Douglas sees a way back in when he learns how LeBeouf has fallen under the spell of a corporate leech (Josh Brolin) whose actions have led to the suicide of LeBeouf's boss (Frank Langella), and who, not so ironically, was the one who put Douglas in jail. Though there's a little bit of the old Gekko in him, Douglas is more intent on getting revenge on Brolin, while at the same time attempting to save LeBeouf from going to prison, and getting back on good terms with Mulligan. Stone's commitment to character and plot, redolent in all of his best films from PLATOON through the original WALL STREET to JFK, NIXON, and WORLD TRADE CENTER, is very evident here in MONEY NEVER SLEEPS; and as he shows, the high-stakes casino that Wall Street was in the Reagan era has now grown into a high-tech monster that, in 2008, was threatening to swallow all of America whole. And while Douglas may have been softened from what Stone had shown him as in the original, there is still a lot of that craftiness left in Gekko, only this time directed at saving rather than destroying. LeBeouf and Mulligan do good turns here, as does the legendary Eli Wallach in a prominent cameo role (amusingly, LeBeouf's cell phone rings with the theme from THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, the legendary 1967 Sergio Leone spaghetti western in which Wallach played a bandido).

The first twenty minutes were very promising. Then it got boring. Extremely boring. There just isn't any plot. Gekko (Michael Douglas) getting together with his daughter maybe was touching for a moment. But the girl crying all the time got on my nerves. She is supposed to be an adult. In stead she is acting like a little child. I like Shia, but what on earth was he representing. At least Charlie Sheen as Bud Fox had a clear objective. (Speaking of which, his cameo as the guy we know from Two and a half men is so in contrast of the character Bud Fox that completely diminishes the first movie. I could not believe that they would make a parody of his role). Shia's character was a guy who was ambitious but stuck with his green energy project. While any men or woman with common sense would bail on it. No, it is the right thing do. Oh, please. Now, this isn't Shia's fault. But I blame Oliver Stone for this, what happened to you. He used to be brilliant. This movie is not even a good depiction of the economic crisis the world is in right now, so it is not even enlightening. If there was one thing you could count on it was how meticulous Oliver Stone was when it comes to history and actual topics. In this film that is completely absent.

I can't recommend this at all. In the first place there should have never been a sequel to Wall Street. That tale was ended. Secondly how is it possible that a sequel directed by Oliver Stone ruins the the spirit of the original one in every way it can. This is an incredible waste of time and celluloid. Don't bother.