Day 4:10 pm
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‘Wall Street’ sequel no match against original
With his slick hair and gigantic cell phone, the Gordon Gekko of Oliver Stone’s original “Wall Street” was the villain who made it OK to think Greed is Good.
Out of the slammer and plopped back into New York just a few months before the financial meltdown of 2008, the Gordon Gekko of Stone’s sequel “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” appears as a reformed man, warning his former colleagues of the impending doom.
As played again by Michael Douglas, Gekko is the same enigmatic figure we remember from the original film. Unfortunately, “Money Never Sleeps” is only a third of a Gordon Gekko movie.
Stone stuffs the movie with multiple storylines– most of them surrounding Shia LaBeouf as an ambitious trader who is lured into Gekko’s world. He’s juggling several complicated relationships: His journalist girlfriend (Carey Mulligan) is also Gekko’s estranged daughter, a ruthless competitor (Josh Brolin) is out to crush him, and his mother (Susan Sarandon) constantly needs money to salvage her fledgling Real Estate business. It takes a good hour and a half for Stone to even begin connecting the strands.
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