The inspiration behind Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is intriguing: What happens when you take an icon – and some would say the icon – of the greed, power and excess of the 1980s and put him in today’s struggling financial world?

Oddly, writer/director Oliver Stone’s movie, a sequel to his 1987 hit Wall Street, never fully commits to depicting iconic Gordon Gekko in a modern world. In fact, Gekko (Michael Douglas) is just a supporting player to Shia LaBeouf’s Jake, an aspiring financial trader who is engaged to Gekko’s estranged daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan). With Jake’s story the main plotline, Stone never finds narrative balance between commentary on the financial crisis and Jake’s character arc, and as the result the movie is disjointed.

However, Stone certainly has interesting things to say, and he’s assembled a great cast to help him say it. Gekko is now out of prison and promoting his first book, Is Greed Good?, while trying to re-establish a relationship with his daughter. Jake, as it happens, is a fan of the former tycoon and (against Winnie’s wishes) seeks Gekko’s advice, as it is 2008 and Jake’s investment firm just collapsed, leaving him unsure if he should work for a rival company led by Bretton James (Josh Brolin).

LaBeouf is up to the task of carrying the movie, and clearly relieved to not be fighting giant machines for a change. He and the supporting cast – Brolin, Mulligan and Frank Langella – handle the locution of the financial world and emotions of the story well. As for Douglas, who won an Oscar for his performance in Wall Street, he looks perfectly comfortable slipping back into Gekko’s shoes, in part because he’s been playing variations of Gekko throughout his career. But it is also disappointing to see Gekko as a supporting character, and worse as a defeated man struggling to get his life back.

Oliver Stone is to blame for this as well. Whereas Wall Street was about Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen, who makes a superfluous cameo here) trying to make his way in the world, Money Never Sleeps is about Jake’s desire for success and the recent financial crisis. Just as he did in W., Stone envisions what he thinks happened at certain times and places, and these scenes never feel genuine.

For example, there is a private meeting between banking leaders and the federal reserve about bailout money, in effect depicting what Stone thinks happened to lead to the bailout. The scene has nothing to do with Jake or Gekko, and feels forced. For good measure Stone also gives us Jake’s mother (Susan Sarandon), a realtor whose only purpose is to document the real estate difficulties of the last few years.

The end effect of Stone’s ambition is two different and fascinating stories that do not mesh together well enough for the movie to really work. Greed may be good, Mr. Stone, but not at the expense of quality.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps (2½)• Directed by Oliver Stone •Starring Michael Douglas, Carey Mulligan, Shia LaBeouf, Josh Brolin • Rated PG-13 • 133 min • At Century Cinemas Del Monte, Maya Cinemas, Northridge Cinemas.