Review of Oldboy (2013) by Cwilder06 — 02 Dec 2013

A few others have said this already but be wary of both the critical and user reviews they seem to largely be commenting on this movie in relation to the original. And I'll put it out there and say, without question, the original is better. If you haven't seen it, you should.

If you haven't seen it and just hate subtitles (which is a shame, but I understand there are people out there that feel that way) this is absolutely a worthwhile film. It is dark, unpleasant and at times shocking. As noted elsewhere, some of the artistry and complexity of the original is lost here. But, what remains is a much more adventurous and disturbing film than you will find just about anywhere in Hollywood produced cinema these days (certainly I can't recall anything this dark getting a wide release). If you like your movies shocking, upsetting, violent, gritty and generally just extreme you can do a lot worse than giving this a watch.

For those that have seen the original but are curious about the remake, so long as you go in knowing it's in no way going to beat the predecessor it's passable. I realize people are divided on Sharlto's character I thought it worked, but agree it was not nearly as well done as it could have been. The first and third act have some significant changes mostly for the worse, I feel, but I credit Spike Lee for actually trying. And I should note they aren't changes to neuter the extreme nature of the film quite the opposite actually, I feel they just didn't work. In particular, there was a great line in the original, 'Smile and the whole world smiles with you, cry and you cry alone' (or something to that effect) which is haunting within the context of the film but is never used here. Despite it being a small thematic element I found it one of the most profound and the film suffers greatly for not introducing it. All that being said, I still prefer this over the shot-for-shot remake of 'Carrie' where the director tried nothing new and presented us with basically just a carbon copy of the prior film.