Douglas underused in ‘Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps’

Director: Oliver Stone

Cast: Michael Douglas, Josh Brolin, Carey Mulligan, Susan Sarandon, Shia LaBeouf

Cert: 12

Greed is good, as Wall Street villain Gordon Gekko said in the original Wall Street film of 23 years ago … it still is, given the current state of the world economy.

Director Stone returns Gekko – quite brilliantly played by the majestic Douglas – to our screens, though this time not in a story he has written himself … and somehow this outing lacks the force of the original.

Gekko is out of prison for his previous misdeeds and teams up with young financial wizzkid Jake (LaBeouf, not nearly as watchable as Charlie Sheen, Gekko’s original partner), who is about to marry his estranged daughter, Winnie (Mulligan), to warn of the impending financial bombshell. Surely, an unlikely scenario given what we already know of Gekko and Jake and Wall Street.

Indeed, one of the major flaws in WS2 is that it is telling us what we already know … bankers and greed have brought us to the pit of ruination.

There is a sub-plot where Jake seeks the identity of those who killed his mentor, but somehow nothing quite clicks together in a film where the real, troubled world never seems to touch the characters, or the audience.

And, alas, the magnificent Douglas is sidelined for a lot of the film, considerably weakening it since he is always worth watching.

Star Rating: 2/5