Oliver Stone's sequel to his 1987 banker drama Wall Street, set in the current day as the world's financial markets hit a meltdown. Introduces Shia LaBeouf as a cocky Wall Street trader.
As the global economy teeters on the brink of disaster, disgraced former Wall Street corporate raider Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is finally out of jail. He may seem like a changed man, but he still has his eyes on the prize and ends up partnering with Jacob (the boyfriend of his daughter - An Education's Carey Mulligan), to get back to the top of the money game.
Oliver Stone isn't known for making films in which his presence isn't felt. In the director's Wall Street sequel he paints a familiar picture of recessionary angst as though he's a superior university lecturer utilising as many projectors and white boards as possible. That means all those inevitable phone conversations between shocked traders are played out on multiple screens, faces zooming distractedly into shot.
As ever, you get the feeling Stone wants to make a deeper statement about the world's collective psyche at this shaky time. But Carey Mulligan still gets plenty of opportunity to tackle deep-seated daddy issues in her role as Gekko's daughter. As for the rogue trader himself, how does the guy hold budding young capitalists in thrall after a lengthy stint in jail? Who knows, but there's a whole lecture hall hanging on his every word as he waxes on about the kind of stuff we've been reading in newspapers since Lehman Brothers went bust. Gekko's gone a bit soft but Michael Douglas is still compelling, not least because his current illness is at the forefront of the viewer's mind as he talks about the sickness of the world's economy.
Stone's obsessions with the psychological roots of the recession takes precedence over his characters, which is both a good and bad thing – on one hand it's comforting to get the cinematic version of a story we all know too well. On the other, young upstart Jake (played with just the right mix of ambition and humility by Shia LeBeouf) is treated as another product of the Y-generation, forced to make a not-very-difficult decision between the world of his do-gooding girlfriend and playing with big guns like Gekko and his nemesis, Bretton James (a perfectly sleazy Josh Brolin).
His intimate scenes with Mulligan are convincing and affecting – if you don't cry when the banks collapse you will when the lovebirds fight. But it's not LeBeouf's fault that his character barely charts the life-changing moral arc of his predecessor, Bud Fox. Instead he appears to serve a greater story that threatens to bore those who don't like economics jargon – or the bigger picture.
By Rebecca Barry Hill, Flicks.co.nz
Nothing super fantastic here, a lazy Oliver Stone film, he must be becoming normal in his old age. its ok, Shia LaBeouf still looks 14 and urealistically plays a sucessful adult, my recomendation would have been James McAvoy who actualy has the tired eyes of a young professional, but that just me. WALL STREET: Will This Never End.
We watched the original "Wall St" on dvd yesterday and saw the new movie today - right up there with the original. Not such a good story but better acting, lighting, phtoography etc. Main younger character not overly convincing but everyone else did really well. Worth going to see. Interesting take on the recent financial meltdown + revenge for actions taken in the previous movie. Love story doesn't add much.
I am old enough to remember and love the original movie. Combining that with my man crush on Shia you can see why i was super keen on this movie. I even resisted watching an "obtained" version so I could experience it at the cinema. well....this movie seemed like two movie tacked together to me. One cool money/business/badys v goodys movie and one lame ass love story.. read more of our reviews here: itsthehabit.com
Now i am more of an action man and anticipated a bit more drama but i felt htat the plot was drawn out and relatively ineventful. Interesting aspects that related to wall st itself and sumed up the financial game but of the 4 people we went with 4 nearly fell asleep.
We loved it but cringed with it - classic Stone from beginning to end. Constant, cheesy reminders of the themes and metaphors but the villain and Gekko were fantastic. Not to mention some of the smaller characters which were winning and memorable.
Timothy Dalton was James Bond, Gabriel ruled the music video world instead of Gaga and Jennifer Grey dirty danced rather than with the stars the last time Oliver Stone let Gordon Gecko loose on the world.
The time is right for the return of Gordon Gekko, but making him a sidekick in a convoluted revenge plot, loaded with GFC history and allusions, stifles his totemic comeback. Less might well have been more, Mr Stone.
A male picture about male heroes, with phallic Cohibas (Cuban cigars) and motorbikes. Twenty-three years on, Oliver Stone has given us the sequel to the most unsubtle father-son parable in cinema history, theoretically rebooted for our new post-crash era, but in actuality just as saucer-eyed and uncritically celebratory about it all as ever.
That rare sequel that took its time -- 23 years -- so it not only advances a story but also has something new to say.
Has Gordon Gekko gone soft? The answer is, sort of -- a development that takes some of the bite out of Oliver Stone's shrewdly opportunistic, glibly entertaining sequel, which offers another surface-skimming peek inside the power corridors of global finance.
We've been told the NZ release date for this flick is Thursday, 23rd Sep 2010.
Release date: September 23rd 2010.
We haven't received times for this movie in this location yet. However these are updated as cinemas announce them, so check back soon. Hopefully the lovely cinemas in your location will choose to play it shortly. ~Ed.
