"What? Nobody believes in comebacks anymore?" - Gordon Gekko, Wall Street: Money Never SleepsMr. Gekko, I believe in comebacks!.. But when they're good. Unfortunately Gordon, your movie wasn't very good. I really wanted to like Wall Street 2, I really did. I mean, I absolutely love the first Wall Street (Why? Click HERE). But with Wall Street 2, it's biggest problem is that it's a fucking mess. It has potential to be a great sequel, that's for sure. But it just didnt know where to go, and for how long.
The movie started out pretty decent. It gave me nothing to say, "Maybe it'll get better...". No, it was a pretty solid re-introduction to Gordon Gekko and the new characters. But unfortunately, Im not here to talk about what's good about this movie. Because if that were the case, this write-up would be about 3 sentences long.
Now one of the many things wrong with this film, first and foremost, was the story. Now dont think the story wasnt there, because it definitely had enough back-stories and side-stories to create a compelling story. But thats exactly the problem... There were way too many. Fucking way too many. You have Gekko trying to get back in touch with his daughter, Jake (LeBeouf) and Gekko's daughter's story (the majority of the movie unfortunately), Jake and his mentor Zabel (Frank Langella), Jake and his green energy company, Jake and his money-grubbing mother (Susan Sarandon), and literally about 4 or 5 other sub-plots that either go nowhere or nowhere good. It almost seemed like they wrote 4 Wall Street movies and decided to say, "Eh, fuck it. Lets just make it one movie.". But what's even worse than that is that most of the sub-plots revolved around Shia LeBeouf sadly. Ive said it before, and Ill say it again, I dont HATE Shia LeBeouf, but I certainly dont like him. He is what I call as "Studio Golden Boy". Meaning, not a lot of people really like him, but the studios do and they put him in every movie that they know is going to make money, so when the numbers flood in, it looks like its attributed to him. And Ill be honest... I wish I had that little prick's career. That motherfucker has been apart of every franchise that I either worship or love: Indiana Jones, X-Files, Wall Street, Transformers (the first 3 being my nerd dreams). Anyway, back to cunting about Wall Street 2. Yeah, there was way too much LeBeouf I could handle.
The movie should really have been called "Wall Street: Douglas You Never See". I swear, Gordon Gekko has a grand total of 30 minutes screen time. I know he wasnt the main character even in the first Wall Street, but this was absolutely ridiculous. I remember my buddy Phil shouted out 25 minutes in (after they re-introduced Gekko), "Isnt Michael Douglas in this movie?". I immediately thought, "Well dude, its only the first 25 minutes. But then 25 minutes turned into 35, then 35 minutes turned to 45 minutes, you'd see him for about 5 minutes, then he would go away for another 20 minutes. I call bullshit. I mean really, the posters should have credited the actors like so: "Shia LeBeouf, Josh Brolin, with Eli Wallach and a special guest appearance by Michael Douglas". Ugh, fuck things.
And that last thing I want to complain like a child about is the FX and graphics they used. It was pretty ridiculous. There were scenes where you were literally the computer screen they were looking at. You saw the characters from the computer screen's point of view. It was absurd. The first shot (which is in the trailer) looked pretty cool, with all the stock numbers and shit scrolling by. I got it. It was stylish and effective. But then he literally used it for every fucking scene. Either regular computer screens dont exist in Oliver Stone's alternate 2008 and only holograms do, or he just made a really shitty and distracting film making decision. That, and he used these fucking awful elementary-level animated digrams used to describe what Jake's character was investing him time and money in (green energy things and stuff [I kinda forget what they were exactly, due to losing interest]).
There were very few things about Wall Street 2 that I actually enjoyed. Two of which were the cameos by Charlie Sheen and the real estate lady from the first one. But I will give credit where credit is due. Michael Douglas gave another killer performance with some pretty rad lines and phrases (naturally). As did Josh Brolin and Frank Langella. They were all good! But not enough to salvage this film. At times I felt like I was living in a 3-month year old's diaper. It was just so fucking messy.
But this beer is to Michael Douglas getting well. Cancer's a bitch. Click here to read the full article...
