23 Worst Movie Endings Since 2000

21. Gordon Gecko Plays Grandpa - Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

The much-anticipated sequel to Oliver Stone's classic Wall Street opens with Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) being released from prison after serving 8 years for insider trading. He makes fast friends with slick young trader Jacob Moore (Shia LaBeouf), who just so happens to be dating Gekko's daughter, Winnie (Carey Mulligan). When an energy investment Jacob is working on is screwed up, Gekko suggests using a $100 million trust fund he set up for Winnie decades earlier to save it, at which point he escapes with the money, double-crossing the pair in true Gordon Gekko style. Jacob tracks Gordon down to London, where he's running a lucrative hedge-fund, and asks him to give him the $100 million back in exchange for being able to meet his grandson, who was born during the interim. He refuses, but back in New York, Jacob and Winnie meet up just as Gordon shows up, informing them that he anonymously put the $100 million back into the energy project. He apologies, they all make up, and a year later, we see Gecko at his grandson's birthday party, where he seems to hit it off with Jacob's mother (Susan Sarandon). Why It Sucks: It just seems so dishonest, and an absolute betrayal of the Gordon Gecko character. The film would have worked better had Gecko simply used his financial guile to take down Josh Brolin's scumbag banker, and left it at that. Instead Oliver Stone threw in an unconvincing redemption arc, and went way over the top by having Gecko playing house at his grandson's birthday party complete with sickly sweet music and in a bout of ham-fisted visual symbolism, images of kids blowing bubbles. Yuck.