Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

In 2008, the rapacious Gordon Gekko of 1987’s Wall Street (Michael Douglas) is out of prison—reconstructed but unrepentant—and working through another eager young go-getter (Shia LaBeouf) in an effort to reconcile with his estranged daughter (Carey Mulligan). Director Oliver Stone mounts Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff’s script with something like the caffeinated energy of the first film, and Douglas reprises his Oscar-winning role with something like his old toothy relish, but the result is a little too soft at the center. Maybe it’s the casting of LaBeouf where the original had the lean and hungry Charlie Sheen, but LaBeouf’s character is a namby-pamby pussycat compared to Sheen’s, and it’s hard to see how he could play it any other way. In the end, high-finance drama gives way to family soap opera.