BOTTOM LINE: Interesting, but now dated, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” covers the same ground as its predecessor, adding the recent GFC woes in to the mix, but serves up no story to give its broad statements any depth or resonance.

THE GOOD: If there was any need for a sequel to the successful 80s flick “Wall Street”, it would have to be the onset of the global financial crisis. Oliver Stone returns to the director’s chair and in many ways infuses the film with the contrast between what happened in the 80s and the utter lunacy that occurred in the lead up to the GFC. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is now released from prison, but no one wants anything to do with him, including his daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan), who is in a happy relationship with Wall Street rising star Jake (Shia LaBeouf). Jake seeks out Gekko when the latter begins predicting a global meltdown on the financial markets when promoting his new book. Winnie wants nothing to do with her father, but Jake meets up with Gekko any way behind her back as he wants his help to exact revenge on tycoon Bretton James (Josh Brolin), who indirectly caused his mentor’s suicide. This is the setup for what essentially becomes a parallel analysis between what happened in the 80s on Wall Street, and what happened in the lead up to the GFC. On many occasions it proves interesting, particularly when Gekko provides his own take on what’s happening. “I got nothing on these crooks!” he says at one point. Oliver Stone makes the film authentic with the use of actual locations on Wall Street as he did on the first film. One of the most powerful sequences is when the chairman of an investment bank commits suicide by jumping in front of a subway train after having to sell his bank for a tiny fraction of what it was worth. “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” is interesting to watch in the statements that it makes and works as a companion piece to the first film.

THE BAD: Oliver Stone has definitely lost his edge with his last few films, and this one is no exception. What made the first film so good was the exploration of the relationship and plot between Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) and Gordon Gekko. That gave that film its meat and the “Wall Street” stuff was interesting scenery along the way. By contrast, this film does not have anything of real dramatic value going on between its main characters. They seem to interact with each other in a way as to only promote the statements that Stone wants to make. As a result, the film does not have much of a story to speak of where anything dramatic happens to them. In the first film, Bud Fox risked his career and ends up going to jail with Gekko pushing him further to oblivion; by contrast Jake only gets pep talks from Gekko and has to worry about his melodramatic relationship while seeking revenge for the death of his mentor, which is eventually delivered but in an undramatic way, and more as a result of the GFC than anything else. The handling of Gekko’s character in this film is problematic. He was a clear villain in the first film, and making him a quasi-good guy this time out takes a lot of shine off his mystique. The Charlie Sheen cameo as Bud Fox seems more like a “look-at-me, I’m doing my cameo for Oliver” scene rather than adding anything substantial to the proceedings. Susan Sarandon’s character is clichéd and two-dimensional, barely providing a face to the ‘normal’ person who leveraged themselves too far. And then there’s the film’s subtitle: the number ‘2’ would have been far better. What is worst of all is that without that dramatic plot line with the main characters, the fictionalising telling of the GFC in this film feels remarkably dated. We know what happened, we know what these guys did, and we know the result. This film is not telling us anything we did not already know. As a result, the meaning behind Stone’s messages do not have much resonance in the context of this film. This last point is remarkable given Oliver Stone’s reputation as a powerful filmmaker of messages.