This morning, Moviefone brings us two clips from the new Oliver Stone stock-drama, “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” This will be our first look at how things turned out, not counting the trailer, which could be not representative of the movie at all. So what’s the consensus?
Well, if money were able to watch these clips, it might actually fall asleep (we know, too easy). There’s no point in being harsh on this film, but the clips are mostly generic and dull. If these are any indication of how the rest of the film plays out, then Stone has quite a snoozer on his hands. It’s been a long time since the original “Wall Street,” but it was surely more lively than this. Yes, it was a corny money-drama, but it was entertaining and it flowed well. The new one looks like pacing never occurred to the director.
The first clip, of Michael Douglas’s Gekko and Shia Labeouf’s character Jacob, is the most representative of the two, with more problems in under a minute than in the whole first film. In the scene, Labeouf tells Gekko that he’s been selling stock that he knows will fail. The pacing is ludicrously off, the actors mistake “comfortable” for “table reading,” and the only action taking place is Gekko putting a cigar in his mouth. So, it’s very humdrum, but the scene isn’t important. It’s too short to begin with and a scene like this is only meant to service the plot and nothing else. Surely, some effort could have been put into it, but that’s fine.
The next clip is Lewis Zabel, the company owner played by Frank Langella, and Jacob. This is the better clip of the two as it is not completely mundane. The two characters are at a park, Jacob bugs Zabel about the company going under while Zabel is indifferent and hopeless. Once again, nothing is really going on, but the actors seem to be playing off each other well and the activity in the park adds life to the scene.
After watching these clips, one might wonder why the heck these were released and not some meatier scenes with some of the better known actors among the cast. Surely Carey Mulligan and Josh Brolin might’ve been utilized instead? Even the nicest viewer probably won’t be convinced to see the film after these two early glimpses. Hopefully, these will work better in the context of the movie and we’ll find out once the reviews come in after “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” premieres at the Cannes Film Festival later this week.