The Cinema For 9/24/10: A Geicko, Some Owls, And A Mess

Despite a lot of high quality acting around, "Money Never Sleeps" can't come nowhere close to its classic 1987 original

Three notable premieres round out September's edition of "The Cinema." Oliver Stone's "Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps", "Legend of the Guardians", and "You Again."

It's fair to say that "Money Never Sleeps'" great cast still can't get the movie to reach the heights of its original, The "Owl Guardians" maybe a little difficult for the kids to embrace, and "You Again" will hopefully be a "Never Again."

For the sequel to the 1987 classic, Oliver Stone has Michael Douglass back to giving another world class performance. But with him not being the bad guy in this installment, coupled with a script that can't come close to matching the first movie's brilliance, "Money Never Sleeps" somehow just didn't get the quality that it deserved for some, like the Spill crew.

The NY Daily News Joe Neumaier however, thought the opposite, praising the film all around:

In "Money Never Sleeps," greed is a constant high, with everyone chasing the dragon.

Brolin, as a memorable villain, charges through his scenes as if hell-bent on destruction, while LaBeouf plays Jake as if he can smell success just around the corner. Mulligan, Susan Sarandon and Frank Langella add excellent support, and even Charlie Sheen shows up as Bud Fox, the wanna-be who helped put his mentor, Gekko, behind bars.

But Douglas is the nexus. He won a Best Actor Oscar the first time around, and this time gives Gekko uncounted layers as he fakes, deals and fuels fires. Stone makes Gekko the speaker of hard truths, and Douglas makes that investment pay off - big-time.

The Los Angeles Times' Kenneth Turan feels that the movie never found a true identity :

As directed by a returning Oliver Stone and written by Allan Loeb and Stephen Schiff, "Wall Street" similarly can't decide if it's a revenge melodrama, an attack on aberrant Wall Street financial practices, an infomercial for hydrogen fusion or, that true Oliver Stone rarity, a touching romance. The film has more moving parts than a pricey Rolex, and they are not all in sync.

Turan's assessment of "Wall Street" probably could also be said about the anticipated 3-D Cartoon movie "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole," as the movie certainly isn't the usual kids cartoon movie that you see of late.

"300" and "Watchmen" director Zach Snyder brings his action scene style to the animated world. But the so-so script is the lasting memory of this movie besides its gorgeous visuals. From The Hollywood Reporter's Stephen Farber:

For young audiences in particular, there's another problem that most animated films are clever enough to avoid. Because all the characters are owls with rather similar looks, it takes a while to distinguish the large creature cast. "Lion King" included meerkats and hyenas as well as lions, and "Shrek" had a donkey and cat to accompany the ogre. It's risky to tamper with this formula. Kids need clearer visual signals to get a handle on all the characters.

The Owls may look great, but everything else about "Legend of the Guardians" just does not match up to how it looks

And from the Boston Globe's Tom Russo, the intense eye catching action scenes got in the way of the plot:

At the same time, the movie gets awfully wrapped up in signature Snyder battle shots, with razor-clawed combatants sailing toward each other in slo-mo, then smashing together at hyper-speed. A Guardian’s talons slash, and we cut to the image of an Orc-like Pure One’s helmet rotating through empty space. “Cool,’’ some kids will say; others may be freaked. The effect finally is to neglect, rather than nurture, a story with potential.

It won't come close to being a complete waste of your money if go see "Money Never Sleeps" or "Legend of the Guardians." However, your judgment will severely be questioned if you ponder to see "You Again", the choice for this week's "Total Dreck Award."

It's a shame that a quality cast like this had to succumb to such rubbish. And then you remember that it's another Disney family film, always coming through at creating ridiculous garbage like this.

I'll just let the Toronto Star's Greg Quill sum up it up:

The script, by Moe Jelline, piles on psychic sores and insufferable coincidences one after another, and in an effort to reach some kind of resolution — among the platitudinous verbiage that passes for dialogue, we get lots of nonsense advice about mistakes humans make and how to fix them. Director Andy Fickman (Race To Witch Mountain) drags his characters through a sideshow of desperate devices, including a tedious karaoke event, a dish-hurling cat fight, a hideously overdone dance instruction routine, a full-dress tussle in a pool, and two or three surprise cameo appearances. None of it’s funny.

And that's the Cinema for this Friday folks. Tuned in next week as the movie that Mark Zuckerberg dreads, "The Social Network", officially debuts for everyone to update their statuses too.

Until then, FIN.