Starring: Michael Douglas, Shia LaBeouf
Plot: When Bretton James (Josh Brolin) drives a well respected veteran broker to step in front of a train, young Wall Street trader with a conscience, Jake Moore (LaBeouf) decides enough is enough. Luckily he just happens to be living with the daughter of a certain Gordon Gekko. Who better than the hero/villain of the ‘loadsamoney’ 1980s to plot revenge on a right banker as the economy collapses.
TM Rating: Fortysomethings and above will remember one of the most iconic movie characters of the 1980s, Gordon Gekko with his ‘greed is good’ mantra. He was the villain that we all really actually quite liked despite being a symbol of times which spawned the materialism is king generation. But nearly a quarter of a century down the line does the Gekko still have what it takes to seduce us? Classic cinematic bad guys are mesmerising, they attract us like moths to a light. But turn them into good guys and you can remove their spark. What we really want to see in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is the sharpest suit in the finance world strutting his stuff again. But mostly audiences are deprived of this and Gekko feels a shadow of his former self. This time Josh Brolin takes over the reigns as the wheeler dealer with shadowy motives. Another problem with Money Never Sleeps is that Shia LaBeouf is a bit lightweight for the subject matter. As a consequence the film comes across as a diluted version of the original. It isn’t a bad movie, it’s just that, like the Gordon Gekko character, it doesn’t quite possess the same bite.
6/10 ““ Sequels are rarely better than the original that spawned them and even with a gap of 23 years to come up with a storyline that would do justice to the memory of Wall Street, the movie makers haven’t bucked the trend with this one. Interesting and diverting? Yes, but nothing special and with the world of finance as the subject matter, there could be a danger that whilst money might not sleep, some audience members might.
Screening Times: 6.45pm daily.
Tickets: €6.50 Buy YourTickets Here
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