There are better ways to spend two hours and fifteen minutes of your time: definitely not Oliver Stone's finest.This film is unadulterated crap and I couldn't be more honest: with his sequel to 1987's Wall Street, Oliver Stone has hit a total bum note.
If the director of classics such as Platoon and Born on the 4th of July was looking for ways to have his say on the Great Financial Crash of 2008, then he certainly missed his chance.
The reasons? Take your pick. The need for a PhD in Economics for a start -- if you're trying to keep up with the tons of information dished up in the first 45 minutes.
It literally hits you in the face at the most hectic pace. And it doesn't help that Stone too succumbs to the notion that a film has got to turn into a frantic succession of epilepsy-inducing ultra-fast superedited cuttings that make your teeth itch, otherwise it won't come across as "groovy", "modern" and "dynamic" enough.
There's giving out information very quickly and there's contempt for the viewer. Wall Street 2 is firmly rooted in camp number two. Bits are seriously unwatchable. Or, like the Hollywood Reporter wrote, the "heavy reliance on multiple screens, graphics and digital tricks makes it feel like you're watching CNN with all its computer-screen busy-ness".
Fair enough it's well-nigh impossible to condense in a film the incredibly complex causes behind the Great Recession. But one feels there was no need to bamboozle the viewer with a shower of soundbites and incomprehensible technical terms straight from the Glossary of Stock Market jargon.
And this is what grates the most. We all know Oliver Stone's heart is in the right place and that his politics is (mostly) spot on. But Money Never Sleeps is the perfect example of a left-wing narrative so up its own backside that its alleged message gets totally lost on the same "masses" it claims to support.
The film is so bad that even Michael Douglas' superb performance can do nothing to help. The man is obviously one of the top actors of his generation, but not even all the Greats and the Goods of Hollywood put together could have propped up such a shabby, directionless script. Incidentally, Douglas is almost invisible until 40 minutes into the film and Shia LeBoeuf's character Jack is simply not compelling enough to carry the torch throughout the first half.
Money Never Sleeps simply lacks focus. It's like a former New Labour minister: it goes on and on without actually saying anything in particular. It's like feeling knackered and desperate for some sleep while suffering the effects of ten cups of extra-strong espresso and three cans of red bull pumping through your veins.
Just remember there are better ways to spend two hours and fifteen minutes.
If the director of classics such as Platoon and Born on the 4th of July was looking for ways to have his say on the Great Financial Crash of 2008, then he certainly missed his chance.
The reasons? Take your pick. The need for a PhD in Economics for a start -- if you're trying to keep up with the tons of information dished up in the first 45 minutes.
It literally hits you in the face at the most hectic pace. And it doesn't help that Stone too succumbs to the notion that a film has got to turn into a frantic succession of epilepsy-inducing ultra-fast superedited cuttings that make your teeth itch, otherwise it won't come across as "groovy", "modern" and "dynamic" enough.
There's giving out information very quickly and there's contempt for the viewer. Wall Street 2 is firmly rooted in camp number two. Bits are seriously unwatchable. Or, like the Hollywood Reporter wrote, the "heavy reliance on multiple screens, graphics and digital tricks makes it feel like you're watching CNN with all its computer-screen busy-ness".
Fair enough it's well-nigh impossible to condense in a film the incredibly complex causes behind the Great Recession. But one feels there was no need to bamboozle the viewer with a shower of soundbites and incomprehensible technical terms straight from the Glossary of Stock Market jargon.
And this is what grates the most. We all know Oliver Stone's heart is in the right place and that his politics is (mostly) spot on. But Money Never Sleeps is the perfect example of a left-wing narrative so up its own backside that its alleged message gets totally lost on the same "masses" it claims to support.
The film is so bad that even Michael Douglas' superb performance can do nothing to help. The man is obviously one of the top actors of his generation, but not even all the Greats and the Goods of Hollywood put together could have propped up such a shabby, directionless script. Incidentally, Douglas is almost invisible until 40 minutes into the film and Shia LeBoeuf's character Jack is simply not compelling enough to carry the torch throughout the first half.
Money Never Sleeps simply lacks focus. It's like a former New Labour minister: it goes on and on without actually saying anything in particular. It's like feeling knackered and desperate for some sleep while suffering the effects of ten cups of extra-strong espresso and three cans of red bull pumping through your veins.
Just remember there are better ways to spend two hours and fifteen minutes.
3 comments:
Oliver Stone has been pretty much running on empty since the mid-90s or so, so this doesn't come as a huge surprise.
Excellent post I like it,
Thanks for sharing a nice information,
for a educate this should not be a hard knock, hardly a guess - the fiscal crisis of bank rolls is simple to understand just like 'hedging' or simply betting as one does in a casino that something even financial system will fail (and profits form it; what an absurdity rationally speaking) It's also clear that bankers' cronies and buddies are running amok through the government halls and the agencies. Minus the wall street smart jargon, nothing is really hard to comprehend. After all it's not anything close to the analysis such as we can find in DER KAPITAL. Cheers
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