Nobody really expected The Wolf of Wall Street to be very good. Martin Scorsese was tasked with chopping the movie apart to meet running time expectations and the trailer looked a little ostentatious. Essentially, we all thought we had another Great Gatsby on our hands, albeit set in New York's banking district.

Wolf of Wall StreetLeonardi DiCaprio, as Jordan Belfort, Throwing a Dwarf

The movie sees Scorsese reteam with Leonardo Dicaprio for an adaptation of Jordan Belfort's memoir concerning his ride as a crooked banker in the 1990s. Belfort made millions through stock market manipulation and running a stock boiler room, eventually spending 22 months in prison.

With a script from The Sopranos virtuoso Terrence Winter and a superb supporting cast including Jean Dujardin, Matthew McConaughey and Jonah Hill, The Wolf of Wall Street is hitting all the right notes with critics and it's beginning to gather serious momentum ahead of the major awards ceremonies.

"Working with a gutsy script by The Sopranos' Terence Winter, Scorsese is jabbing hard at America's jackpot culture. The laughs are merciless and nonstop, every one with a sting in its tail" said Peter Travers of Rolling Stone.

"The Wolf of Wall Street is a slippery beast, both beguiling and repellent on the surface, more difficult to pin down the deeper you look, and shifty in ways that I found intoxicating," said Time Out New York.

Leonardo DiCaprio Jonah Hill Wolf of Wall StreetJonah Hill [L] and Leonardo DiCaprio [R] in 'The Wolf of Wall Street'

"The best Scorsese film since Goodfellas ... Its excellence in other areas aside, this is plainly among the funniest films of the year -- ribald, riotous, ridiculous," wrote Little White Lies.

"Great filmmakers don't grow old like the rest of us, and at 71, Martin Scorsese has stormed back with a picture that would have exhausted a director half his age," said Robbie Collin of The Telegraph.

"An exhilarating portrait of a modern day Rome the feral "Wolf Of Wall Street" rages, pounds and throbs like a riotous maximalist at the greatest party ever staged" said Playlist, wonderfully.

The Wolf of Wall Street hits theaters on Christmas Day.

Watch the trailer for The Wolf of Wall Street: