Wall Street - Money Never Sleeps

[treachery]

The sequel to the 23 year old classic is here.

Young wall street guy (shia labeouf - pretty good performance!) has promising carrier at investment bank Lehman Brothers (they've changed the name to something silly). When the bank crashes over a weekend in 2008 he seeks revenge on the ones he thinks are responsible. He seeks help from his soon to be father-in-law Gordon Gecko (Michael Douglas) who just has been released from prison. They then collaborate in an attempt to bankrupt their enemies.

Unfortunately there is not much focus on the actual collapse of Lehman Brothers (a few interesting scenes) or the 'glamorous' life of a wall street banker. Instead, the movie is drowned in pretentious dialogue and ambiguous messages. On one hand capitalism seems to be root of all evil and on another hand "bubbles" such as the US housing market collapse seems to be nescessary for capitalism to evolve. Leaving room for interpretation is good but I don't think the movie makes much sense.

The biggest loss however, is that in the 1987 Wall Street, Gordon Gecko was the worlds biggest asshole, but you still couldn't help being attracted by his lifestyle (just like in american psycho). This is not the case in this one. There is nothing really attracting/cool by the baddies here.

5/10

[Yathezai]

The way you described this movie reminded me of "Trading Places", probably one of the few movies I've ever watched more than once. That was such a brilliant movie. :p 5/10 rating doesn't sound like this is worth a watch though...but if you know another good movie in the same "setting", I'd love to check it out!

[Rucious]

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1027718/

6.9/10 I would also give this film a 8 and it really is worth to watch it

[Goza]

Meh, what a film of wasted opportunities and lack of focus. Also, how out of touch with their audience are those millionaire Hollywood filmmakers. When Mr.Youngster receives a 1.5 mio check 5 minutes into the film, I have a hard time feeling sympathy for him if the rest of the movie deals with him mostly having money problems. The same applies to his mentor, who apparently has nothing else in his life to live for but his company. Yeah OK, go ahead and ruin some train drivers life, you stupid idiot.

[spoiler]And whats up with LeBeouf's awesome plan? He wants to get revenge on Brolin, by.... working for him? And once he gets screwed by him he ragequits? Yeah, my god, that plan worked out fine! /facepalm

Then, I guess it's also normal to have 100 mio stashed away in Switzerland. "Oh darling, I forget to mention..." Guess what, Mr.Egoist might run away with your money instead of investing it in your silly never-made-profit research project? Who'd guessed![/spoiler]

Anyway, I still enjoyed it as casual watching mainly due to nice HD aerial shots of New York and OK acting (besides annoying consta-cry-redhead girl who prefers blogging about the truth from her 250k $ loft and 200k $ blogging office...yeah, she's totally "back to the roots", boy...).
But the plot itself is rather "lol".

Think this is quite a fitting review (some IMDB user):
[spoiler]I had high hopes for this film ever since I saw the teaser trailer of Gekko getting released from prison. It has everything you need for success. Iconic characters, interesting subject, good acting and great cinematography. Unfortunately I was greatly disappointed by snooze fest with a meandering story with no focus and some strange "green" message.

The movie starts off trying to set up LeBeouf's characters motivation. But even that is never clear. Is he financially or morally invested in some fusion project or both? Does he want to get his girlfriend and her father back together for her or because he wants a new mentor? Is he a greedy Wall Street guy with great ideas or is he some Eco-warrior trying to change the world? And then there's some half assed revenge plot against some financial tycoon who ends up embodying the entire financial meltdown.

Through out the film the audience is drug along as these plots come and go. At one point the most important thing to the main character is getting revenge against Brolin's character and ends up working for him. But instead of getting revenge, he try's to get an investor in green technology. When his boss, who's he trying to take down, doesn't invest in the green technology LeBeouf's character breaks down and quits. So he forgets revenge and returns to getting his girlfriend back together with her father Gordon Gekko. At some point Gekko mentions he left his daughter $100 million which, strangely enough, is the exact amount that he wanted his last boss to invest in the green company. So he starts tricking his girlfriend into signing all the money over to her father who has promised to give it to the green company. LeBeouf's character is the only person on Earth who doesn't know that a guy who went to prison for insider trading might not be trust worthy. So surprise, surprise Gekko runs off with the money and we are treated to a ripoff of The Usual Suspects as LeBeouf thinks back to all the situations that showed Gekko is lying. So he goes back to revenge.

So all of that along with more uncomfortable close ups of a girl crying then I can count, a number of strange transitions and the worst cameo I've ever seen with Charlie Sheen showing up as Bud Fox. He appears out of nowhere for no reason with two girls on his arm acting more like Charlie from Two and a Half Men than Bud Fox.

All of this happens at a snails pace and makes you wonder if Stone has seen the first film in 20 years. I'm waiting for the sequel to Platoon where we skip the battle scenes and focus on a girl crying and some general who makes weird bird noises after every line.[/spoiler]