Review of Oldboy (2013) by Joe C — 27 May 2015

A remake that never needed to be made. Spike Lee's Oldboy is a shameless copy off of the original and this version added almost nothing new to the characters or the story being told. In the original, I cared for the main character and I was on the edge of my seat wandering what was gonna happen to him and what twists the film could come up with and with this one, I never felt that way and it felt like a chore when I was being told what I already heard from the original.

From the beginning, Josh Brolin's character was an unlikeable person and I never once felt emotionally attached to him as a character and that was another problem the movie had. Despite some good things in this remake, pointless and unnecessary were the main words I was thinking of when watching this rehash of a film.

If only the filmmakers would have thought of better ideas and given us more different plot elements, this would have been a more competent remake and I would never have felt like I wasted 1 hr and 40 min watching a retelling of everything I already watched from the original Korean version that was more deep than this one and actually had original storytelling in it.

The only positives I personally found with this remake is that I thought that Elizabeth Olsen, and Sharlto Copley gave solid performances, Josh Brolin's acting got better as the film went on, and I thought some of the different story elements did work and they were thoughtful even though most of the film is copying off the original in every way In the end, if you want to watch an original concept be brought to life on film, do yourself a favor and watch the original and not this one.