More than 20 years after Michael Douglas won an Oscar as scheming Wall Street trader Gordon Gekko in Oliver Stone’s Wal Street, the character’s mantra — “Greed is good” — rings louder and clearer than ever. The global recession continues to bite and much of the blame is laid at the revolving doors of avaricious bankers.

Against this backdrop of mismanagement, writer-director Stone returns to the hallowed halls of New York’s financial district, where banks go cap in hand to the US government for bail-outs to strength the system’s crumbling foundations. Aside from a cameo from Charlie Sheen as Bud Fox, Gekko is the only returning character for the sequel, which pits Douglas’s dinosaur, who has been languishing behind bars, against a new generation of men in suits.

As the lead character in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps tells his environmentally conscious fiancée: “The only green is money, honey.”

The film opens in 2008 with Gekko (Michael Douglas) being released from prison with his effects, which include a gold money clip and a hefty, brick-like mobile phone. He emerges into a world firmly controlled by the financial community and teetering on the brink of ruin.

Gordon finds new success with a best-selling book and tour. In the audience is ambitious trader Jake Moore (Shia LaBeouf), who is the boyfriend of Gordon’s estranged daughter Winnie (Carey Mulligan). He is inspired by Gordon’s words but knows that making contact would jeopardise his relationship with the woman of his dreams. When Jake’s mentor Louis Zabel (Frank Langella) commits suicide after his beloved company is taken over by vicious rival Bretton James (Josh Brolin), the young man swears revenge and enlists the help of Gordon to destroy Bretton.

The film bares its teeth at the banking community but ultimately doesn’t draw blood, using the recession as a hook for a retread of the original. LaBeouf and Mulligan are well matched and both cry convincingly as they struggle to keep their relationship afloat in a sea of lies. Douglas clearly relishes the chance to slip back into the designer threads of his signature role, gleefully taking on old enemies.

Oxford graduate Howard Marks abandoned the education system to become one of the world’s most powerful and influential drug dealers during the 1960s and 1970s. Bernard Rose’s Mr Nice charts the rise and fall of Marks (Rhys Ifans) from his teenage years to the inglorious end of two decades when he was lavishing his ill-gotten gains on his wife Judy (Chloe Sevigny) and three children.

“My success completely went to my head and I’ve been living off it to a certain extent ever since,” Marks admits in a voiceover. He goes on the run and forges a professional link with emotionally volatile IRA operative Jim McCann (David Thewlis).

The film makes Marks’s story seem rather pedestrian and the second half becomes repetitive as Howard and his family play cat and mouse with the authorities. Ifans delivers a confident lead performance while Sevigny struggles in vain with the English accent. Why was an American actress, albeit a hugely talented one, cast in the pivotal role? However, Rose’s film really sparks to life when Thewlis is on screen, barely clinging to his character’s sanity.

Chewing scenery as if he hasn’t eaten for a week, he delivers the one performance that shines brighter than the fabulous costumes and production design that evoke the era so well.