Spike Lee's direction is workmanlike and uninspired. The only real bright spot in the cast is Elizabeth Olsen, who continues to impress and is definitely headed for bigger things than this.
OLD BOY SPIKE LEE MOVIE
Jackson also appears in the movie in a villainous role and, of course, his huge personality makes Copley appear all the more underwhelming. In contrast, Copley is a completely unsympathetic foppish cartoon villain. He gave a sympathetic performance that actually made you feel for his character, even when you're being repulsed by his actions. Yoo Ji-Tae was so good in the original film. He's not awful but just very unimpressive. Josh Brolin was probably a weak choice to play the lead. Finally, it ends with the type of bizarre "happy" ending that plays to the worst stereotypes of Hollywood filmmaking. I watched the movie with friends who hadn't seen the original and they all figured out the twist and none were particularly shocked by it. Worse, this remake seems to telegraph the twist in ways the original didn't. Obviously the biggest problem is that the twist that the first movie relied so heavily on is going to be spoiled for a large portion of the audience that will even want to see this one. I'm speaking particularly of the comedy and action portions, which feature Josh Brolin trying to mimic Choi Min-sik with embarrassing results. It's when the movie tries to copy its Korean roots that it fails most. There's no hypnosis, no guy cutting his own tongue off, and no octopus scene. In some ways the movie smartly avoids trying to copy some things from the original that would not fit with an American version. Oldboy (2013) is, unfortunately, not a good remake. The cookie cutter shot-for-shot remakes are the worst. That's a good thing, in theory, because all of the good remakes I can think of changed things from the original. The benefit that a remake of a foreign film has over a regular remake is that you are pretty much forced to make things different, at least a little, simply by virtue of different tastes and filmmaking styles between cultures. Oldboy is a 2013 American neo-noir action thriller film directed by Spike Lee and written by Mark Protosevich.
Anyway, all of this is to say that while I was skeptical of an Oldboy remake, I was not 100% against it.
The percentage is still low, but maybe not quite as low. However, English-language remakes of foreign films (or vice-versa I suppose) are a slightly different story. The percentage of remakes that are equal to or better than the original is probably less than 1%.
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