Wall Street/Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps [2 Discs] [DVD]

Wall Street, taking place in 1985, has Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) as a young and ambitious stockbroker. He idolizes the wealthy investor Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) and hopes to work with him and become a big player on Wall Street. When he finally scores a meeting with him, Fox learns that Gekko is a lot more ruthless about pursuing his agenda than he thought. How far will he compromise to make it to the top? Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps takes place in 2008 amidst the financial crisis. Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf) is a trader working at an investment firm who sees green energy as the future and wants to use his position to help that dream. He is currently dating Winnie (Carey Mulligan), Gordon Gekko's estranged daughter. Gekko (with Douglas reprising his role), meanwhile, has since been released from federal prison for his financial crimes and is now promoting a book he wrote. His years in prison seem to have made him realize that some things in life are more important than money and wants to reestablish a relationship with Winnie. Wall Street is quite an entertaining film. Michael Douglas really shines as the unscrupulous Gordon Gekko as one of the most memorable villains of 1980s cinema. The movie is an intelligent look at the "greed is good" excesses of the 1980s while still being an entertaining film with interesting and complex characters. That seems to be the central theme of the movie: capitalism. How much is too much? Is greed really good? While at times some scenes seem to drag on a little too long, it is overall very watchable and at times thought-provoking. Then comes the lackluster sequel. I would have hated to have been around in 1987 and saw the original only to wait twenty-three years to see this. The main problem of Money Never Sleeps is its complete lack of focus. Is it about green energy? Greed? Jake's and Winnie's relationship? Is Gekko returning to the world? The financial crisis? It is just all over the place. Worst, it never really seems to be about, you know, Wall Street. Another problem is the characters. You just never care about any of them and none are really interesting. It seems that Douglas really tried to revive the magic of the Gekko character, but it does not really work in the movie. I blame the script more than anything else. Sometimes it does not even seem like the same character from the first movie. In fact, the only other connection to the original film is a cameo by Charlie Sheen as Bud Fox, but it comes off as forced and dopey. The original movie has one of the most iconic scenes from 1980s cinema where Gekko stands before a shareholders' meeting to berate the company's management and say that greed is good. Nothing of the sort is in the second film. This really exemplifies why Wall Street is so memorable while Money Never Sleeps is easily forgotten. It really feels like a wasted opportunity on the part of Oliver Stone. Both movies come with an audio commentary by director Oliver Stone plus the original Wall Street has a forty-five minute making-of feature. In conclusion, while Wall Street may have some minor issues, it really is a memorable, interesting, and entertaining film. The sequel is not a very good movie. Still, this two movie pack is decent if you really want to have both movies at a decent price. My three-star rating represents an aggregate between the two films.

This is a classically-styled film. It's been done before, done since, but not often done better. After Platoon, Oliver Stone decided that, post-Oscar, he would immediately jump into another film. This film was Wall-Street (1987) co-written and directed by Stone featuring Michael Douglas making a leap from the small screen to his first solid movie role and winning a Best Acting Oscar in the process. Also featured is Martin and Charlie Sheen. Things on the DVD that are not listed on the Double Feature box: Documentary featuring Stone, Douglas, and the two Sheens. This is an excellent 45 minute examination of the movie. Also a Commentary by Oliver Stone and two movie trailers. Disk two, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2010), also comes with a Commentary by Oliver Stone and a short entitled "Gordon Gekko Is Back." It's purely a commercial endeavor also directed by Oliver Stone and staring Michael Douglas with an uncredited appearance by Charlie Sheen.

I had not seen the first Wall Street movie it was better than I thought; it was really interesting to watch a movie that was filmed so long ago. I enjoy movies like this because it's like a time capsule from a different era. It's funny to see what people thought was high society in the 1980's, I'm sure people will say the same thing about movies made in 2015 some day. The second Wall Street movie was decent, it wasn't quite as interesting as the first one but I still enjoyed it; if I had to give it a rating I'd say it was a 6.5 out of 10.

The greatest 80's wall street movie ever made with the classic performance by michael Douglas as Gordon Gecko. One for the ages...could have done without the sequel though which was obviously just done for the money...ironic

Douglas plays a greed driven stock broker who does any and everything to make money. Draws in a novice partner into the scheme causing conflict and embarrassment for his firm.

I liked the original "Wall Street" and "Money Never Sleeps". Al;though, I liked the original better. Was much younger back then, and naive to how things worked with stocks.

Wallstreet is a classic movie, nuff said. Wallstreet Money Never Sleeps is a solid movie for fans of the original but, like most sequels, does not quite measure up.

A great package to include both movies in one set. Wall Street is part of American film history and iconic in its characters. The sequel is not to the same level, but still very entertaining.