Film Review: Spike Lee’s ‘Oldboy’ Remake Merely Echoes Superior Original

Submitted by BrianTT on November 26, 2013 - 2:57pm

After years in development hell, Spike Lee’s remake of Park Chan-wook’s beloved “Oldboy” is finally here. Does it live up to the high expectations set by the original? Does it mark a return to form from the director of some of the most important movies of his era or is it another disappointment? No and no. Sadly, what’s so remarkable about “Oldboy,” especially when one considers the darkness of its themes and graphic violence, is that it’s just so forgettable. It’s an echo of Park’s film and will be quickly dismissed in the legacy of its director.

Rating: 1.5/5.0

Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin) is a prick. He’s a drunk who forgets plans with his daughter, screws up business deals by hitting on the client’s girlfriend, and generally seems like the kind of guy you’d avoid at a bar. Joe stumbles around the world, barely keeping alcoholism in check and burning bridges left and right. One late night, after trying to get bar owner friend Chucky (Michael Imperioli) to open for one more drink and failing, Joe is kidnapped. He’s thrown in what looks like a cheap hotel room but is actually a prison cell run in a high-profile, highly-secretive building operated by Chaney (Samuel L. Jackson). While he’s imprisoned, his wife is brutally murdered and Joe is framed for the crime. He spends the next twenty years in that room, being fed dumplings through the door and watching Kung Fu movies. And then he’s let go.

Read Brian Tallerico’s full review of “Oldboy” in our reviews section.

After his release, Joe becomes obsessed with figuring out who took the last two decades of his life. As with the original, the key to “Oldboy” is about asking the right questions. It’s not who wronged you that matters. It’s why. And why they let you go. Whereas Park allowed these themes to emerge from the narrative, Lee and writer Mark Protosevich hammer viewers over the head with them. Protosevich’s script for “Oldboy” is so frustrating in how self-aware it is of both the original and the themes with which it plays, making it always feel like a movie more than a story with characters with whom we can relate. It’s constantly calling back to the original (“Hey, remember this?!?!”) while drawing attention to how it’s different and highlighting, underlining, and bolding its themes. It never develops its own rhythm or reason to exist.

Continue reading for Brian Tallerico’s full “Oldboy” review.

“Oldboy” stars Josh Brolin, Elizabeth Olsen, Sharlto Copley, Samuel L. Jackson, and Michael Imperioli. It was written by Mark Protosevich and directed by Spike Lee. It opens on November 27, 2013.