Wall Street 2 - Money is a Bitch

According to Gordon Gecko, "money is a bitch, she sleeps in the bed with you with one eye open. Next thing you know, she might be gone forever.” Hmmm, we think we met that girl before, but she left and maxed our credit cards - what a wench. But you know what is even worse than a one-eyed bitch This movie - that's what. Wall Street 2 will go down as one of the worst films of 2010. It wasn't just bad - it was cinematically bankrupt and needed a bailout - but none came.

So here's a question to Oliver Stone? Why go a make a simply awful sequel to a truly great movie? Could it be - greed? Yes, that's it, greed is good, you've been co-opted by the ghost of Gorden Gecko in a sort of reverse Scrooge action.

There are primary three elements to any movie:

1. The premise
2. The script
3. The acting
   

In Wall Street 2 - none of these seemed to make sense. First, the premise was ridiculous, Gordon Gecko, supposedly the genius player becomes the only person other than Martha Stewart to actually get locked up for insider trading - nope, we're not buying it. Then we've got this goofy relationship thing with his daughter - the girl seems to have a terminal tear duct disorder. Whenever she's not crying like Niagara falls she looks like she's about to. Somehow, Shia Labeouf is in love with her, we assume because she's so sensitive and all and she just happens to be sitting on millions in cash. Without giving away too much - Gecko proves he's still top lizard on Wall Street but that he's also got some sort of soul too.

All the while, someone decides to provide some sort of educational overview on fusion power and the green economy. This movie was all over the place - the script was just awful and the acting followed suit. We wanted our 7 dollar per ticket investment back - but it was gone into the recession that lasted 90 minutes and never seemed to end - did we say we really hated this movie?

Oliver Stone's imagination wasn't nearly creative enough to encompass the mega-conspiracies that now characterize the real Wall Street - circa 2010.

Worst of all, though, this movie was pretentious as hell. The money is a bitch line was the opening volley in a barrage of prison meets Wall Street philosophical posturing which got downright silly pretty quick. Here are some other forgettable quotes from Wall Street 2:

• “You are the Ninja Generation. No income. No job. No assets.” (The Ninja Turtle generation to be exact)
  
• “The mother of evil is speculation.” (then who is the father?)
  
• “Greed makes the bartender buy three houses.” (Have you met any greedy bartenders?)
  
• “Bucks + Steroids = Leverage” (are they referring to Starbucks?)
  
• “The family business is payback.” (sounds like some families we know)
  
• “A fisherman always sees another fisherman from afar.” (we wonder what they talk about)
  
• “Moral hazard is when they take your money and then are not responsible for what they do with it.” (we did like this one)
  
• “Insurance is like getting kids to buy crack in the playground.” (we're really not seeing this)
  
• “Parents are the bones where children sharpen their teeth.” (good thing we're all fat now)
  
• “Are you a bee? Do you like to sting people?” (Dora does Wall Street?)
  

With wisdom like that , who needs ignorance?

Is Wall Street out of Control? You bet - at least these guys were a
bit more entertaining in how they portrayed it...

-- oh and by the way Mel Gibson is still crazy. Who knows maybe he had is money with Bernie Madoff, that might explain it.


Copyright 2010, Raving Reviews