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Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
Curse of the Sequel
Anyone who loves the first "Wall Street" for anything other than 'greed is good' quote, will not like the sequel. No memorable quotes or anything really compelling.
The original "Wall Street" had so many elements that could be used for a sequel, plus the recent meltdown of the financial markets, this was a GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY to make the sequel. Instead what you have is a movie that tries to be something to everyone. The dialog by Aaron Sorkin is excellent, but the movie is flat, shallow and not engaging at all.
Let's start with the obvious - a central character in the new movie is the daughter of the villain Gordon Gekko, but she didn't exist in the original. Gekko had a son, Rudy, who is discussed but he's now dead. He's discussed briefly and then, oh well! The daughter is a blogger, with a liberal blog and her boyfriend/fiancé is a trader. Yawn. The actor, Shia Lebouf, to me is not a great actor or interesting to watch.
Gekko is older and wiser and the scene of him getting out of jail is the best part of the movie. Now he's older and wiser and time is more important than money. He writes a book in prison and goes around speaking about the over-hyped markets and how it is all going to come crashing down. No one will listen and that part of the story line isn't really fleshed out. Too bad.
The movie tried to include elements of the world we live in, concern over energy for the future and investing in 'green' technology; the real estate bubble. Individual characters are also used to represent current events and ideologies, for example: Shia Lebouf is big on environmental companies and money isn't that important to him; Carey Mulligan (Gekko's daughter) is a 'modern woman' who also writes a liberal blog - the new 'Wall Street Chronicle' used to manipulate the market.
Susan Sarandon as Shia Lebouf's real estate investing mother. Over leveraged when the market starts to crack, but she USED to be a nurse! Selfish, narcissistic, she is the new greed. Why be a nurse when you can flip houses for more money? Hey, nurses make real good money AND help people, that's why.
The NEW villain, Josh Brolin is no Gordon Gekko. Instead he is BP Oil, Goldman Sachs, and George W. Bush. The scenes with him and Shia are a yawn.
The NEW hero/mentor/older wiser guy with good values is Frank Langella. He represents Lehmann Brothers and the 'old way' things were done on Wall Street. 'Old' meaning the previous movie.
There is too much time spent trying to tie the first movie into the second because two of the three main characters weren't even BORN when it was made! To add insult to injury is the cameo of Charlie Sheen. Basically you get Charlie Harper instead of Bud Fox.