Review of Oldboy (2013) by Joe H — 12 Feb 2014

Hollywood butchering another incredible foreign film by dumbing it down and completely removing the brilliance. Spike Lee is an overrated tool, imo, and his helming of the fantastic source material is rather stale and quite lazy.

Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Olsen do well in their roles but the usually amazing Sharlto Copley is channeling a hammy bond villain and is none-too-menacing. The story mostly follows the original (though painting with broad strokes and spoon-feeding the mystery to the central character) but the changes to the ending are detrimental and lose the impact of the original.

I did like the beginning scenes in the room for 20 years, and the infamous hallway fight scene wasn't as bad as I thought it would be handled, but it's still a pale imitation and completely forgettable.

Sidney Prescott said it best, "Don't fuck with the original".