REWIND REVIEW: Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

MOVIE
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

CAST
Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf

RATING
PG-13

RELEASE
September 24, 2010

DIRECTOR
Oliver Stone

STUDIO
20th Century Fox

RUNNING TIME
2 hours 12 minutes




GRADE
B (86)





STARS
**1/2










REVIEW:

2010 was a really big year for bringing back the 80s. First we had The Karate Kid, then we had The A-Team, now 20th Century Fox has decided to bring Gordon Gekko back to the big screen and back to Wall Street in Money Never Sleeps, which takes place 20 years after Mr. "Greed Is Good" was last seen. This time he unites with Shia LaBeouf of Transformers fame, Academy Award nominees Carey Mulligan and Josh Brolin, and the legendary actors Susan Sarandon and Frank Langella. You may think that this terrific cast, directed by the legendary Oliver Stone would be one hell of a good time. Unfortunately, you may be disappointed as Money Never Sleeps drags on for too long, the story is confusing, and some of the acting is just very poor, especially since these actors are usually terrific players.

Gordon Gekko, after being in jail and reconstruction of his live for two decades is back to get back into the game he once destroyed at: Wall Street. Not only is he back in Wall Street, he is trying to rebond the relationship between himself and his now adult daughter, Winnie. Winnie is now engaged to a successful Wall Street player named Jacob Moore. Jacob wants his fiance' and her father to get back together again, but what is Gordon really in it for? The family, or the game. He did once say "Greed is Good," but how far will that get him anyway?

I expected at movie far much better than what I watched here. What really shocked me about this movie was that Gordon Gekko was only in about half of the movie, which is disappointing because Gekko is supposed to be one of the greatest movie villains of all time, except you don't see it that much here. Michael Douglas is actually the best actor in this movie, but was never in line to get nominated for any Oscars this year. He wasn't nearly as good as actors like Andrew Garfield and Justin Timberlake in The Social Network, or Geoffery Rush in The King's Speech. The real main actor in this movie is actually Jacob Moore, who's played by Shia LaBeouf. He is not the world's worst actor. In fact, he's one of the better actors in a long time. He doesn't always play the same role in most of the movies he's in, like Michael Cera and Jesse Eisenberg, he expands his horizons when it's the right time to do so. I personally don't see any problems with his acting. He's an actor, and he acts. That's all there is to it. So I believe that he's a nice presence in this movie. The other actors, like Carey Mulligan and Frank Langella were good, but very small and unnecessary. Probably the worst actors in this movie were Josh Brolin and Susan Sarandon. They were awful and unbelievable in this movie, and surely could have done a better job than they did in this.

So the story wasn't so original, and the acting was sub-par, but just for Shia LaBeouf and Michael Douglas, Money Never Sleeps could be worth the 132 minutes this movie bestows within itself. The running time is actually 20-30 minutes too long, and they could have cut so much stuff out of this movie, like Susan Sarandon's parts. I wouldn't recommend this moviue to any of my friends or many adults who get bored easily, since this movie is slow paced. But for people who understand Wall Street and can withstand the long running time, like my older family members, they might enjoy this movie more than I do. But for the time being, Money may Never Sleep, but I wanted to oh so badly while watching this. But I couldn't, since I wanted to have a review up for all of my readers out there. I'm just glad I didn't pay to see this in theaters. Then I would've been very disappointed by the outcome. Oh by the way, it's not that Money Never Sleeps, it never sleeps in a crappy movie that I or my family pays for. Its sleeps peacefully in my bank account where it belongs and with all of the good movies that I saw this past year, like The Social Network and The King's Speech.