Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps ... But Audience Members Do Sleep!

Earlier this year I wrote a preview post regarding "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" (now in theatres and the No. 1 film of the weekend).

The May 2010 prediction that the film "might suck" unfortunately came true, though it was not as bad as this blogger expected when purchasing my ticket.

Add this film to the pile of sequels that failed to live up to the original.

A few highlights on the "disappointed" side:

• David Byrne, Brian Eno and the Talking Heads tunes return to the soundtrack. Sadly, the songs went overplayed (one tune in particular seemed to crop up over and over, with no instrumentals of the first film; instead, a lackluster Craig Armstrong mix played in some scenes, prompting the question, "does this theatre sell No-Doz?"
• Though the motorcycle "chase" of the trailer proves to be more of a "competitive ride" for boss and employee, the whole scene was unnecessary and, ultimately, another in a series of poorly written dialogue punctuated by a predictable and forgettable "F*ck You!" (c'mon, in the original, the dialogue had much more clever angry exchanges ... for instance, "When I get a hold of the son of a bitch who leaked this, I'm gonna tear his eyeballs out and I'm gonna suck his f*cking skull!"-- now, that is some dialogue!)
• The set-up for the motorcycle scene begins with a Manhattan helicopter ride for Shia LaBeouf that is reminiscent of those ridiculous Scottrade chopper ads that subtly showcase that "with every spin of this rotor, we're burning your investment money in the form of jet fuel."
• No Daryl Hannah. They dug up the 100+ year old Manhattan realtor from the first film, but could not find a way to bring back Daryl Hannah.
• Whoever the actress is playing Gordon Gekko's daughter = poor man's Katie Holmes, with bad hair. Future viewers may consider drinking games built around the volume of crying scenes for this performance. "She's crying again -- take another shot!"
• What in the world were they thinking, writing in two (lame) scenes for Susan Sarandon? Hello -- she is an Oscar winner, and like Sigourney Weaver in "Avatar," Sarandon's talent was totally wasted.
• No Terence Stamp. I got hopeful of a cameo by Stamp when Gekko set up shop in London for the sequel. Alas, no Stamp.
• Little or no actual footage of Wall Street (the geographic location).

During the course of the film, an on-screen graphic sequence pops up from time to time, taking a panoramic skyline shot and converting it into a graph of declining stocks. This might as well have been a flat line or a heart monitor -- I found myself squirming in my seat several times, shaking my head, asking why "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" was so drawn out and downright boring.

Photo via this MSN link and 20th Century Fox