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Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010)
Rate:
4
Viewed:
5/11, 12/24
5/11:
Not too bad at all.
I thought I would be disappointed by Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. Also, I was anticipating a big drop
off in the quality of the performances and the script because of what happened with
Alexander. Finally, Oliver Stone is back. The number one reason why I wanted
to see it is Michael Douglas as Gordon "Greed Is Good" Gekko.
Michael Douglas is sort of okay here. Of course, the most anticipated moment of the film is his meeting with Bud Fox
which is hysterical to watch in a nostalgic way. The only complaint I have is the poor camera work, especially when
Gordon Gekko was giving a lecture in the assembly hall. I wish they would knock off that crap. Although Shia LaBeouf
can't act, he does fairly well only because of the high-quality ensemble cast for support. The inclusion of Josh
Brolin helps, too.
All in all, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps isn't a masterpiece like its predecessor, but it holds up well
for a sequel.
12/24:
I've decided Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps sucks.
I can watch the original many times, but this one, no way. That's it for me. So, what went wrong? For starters, it's
the lousy script with zero Gekkoisms. Then, there's Shit LaBeef who's awful in acting. Ditto for Carey Mulligan who
should never, never, never appear in movies again for the rest of her life. At one point, Shit LaBeef talked
like a used car salesman, and I was rolling my eyes the whole time. Next is the letdown of Michael Douglas'
performance. He isn't even Gordon Gekko. That was just Michael Douglas being himself. Personalities never change
over time unless one has had a brain injury.
As for the story, who cares? The world didn't end back then. What happened was the whole thing began in Chicago
decades ago and, over time, the idealism of granting more equality in home ownership to black people and other
minority groups seemed so appealing to the White House that Bill Clinton decided to make it a national policy
during his two terms. The result was that those with poor credit history and nearly zero savings were approved en
masse for mortgages worth hundreds of thousands dollars. Insurance companies packaged these subprime mortgages for
sale to investors all over world. Once these new homeowners couldn't meet the payments and had to default, the
bottom started to fall out mightily. To make matters worse, the government, which approved the idea in the first
place and forced many companies to toe the line, bailed them out. The taxpayers ended up paying for it while
everybody else profited from the mess. Now, that's failed government and Wall Street at work for you.
By the way, nuclear fusion? Ha! It'll never ever happen just like quantum computing. All the billions poured into
it will be virtually wasted.
All in all, let's pretend that Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps never existed.