Damn, this is the first Spike movie I’ve seen that I hated!!! I should’ve known this would be bad from the get go when the credits proclaimed this as “A Spike Lee Film” instead of “A Spike Lee Joint”. Lee probably wasn’t happy with how the movie turned out just like the rest of us, but I’m sure even if there were to be a director’s cut released, it still wouldn’t be all that good, better for sure, but it WOULD NOT live up to the 2003 Korean masterpiece directed by the great Park Chan-wook from which this movie was based. Remakes don’t work when they are remaking a critically acclaimed masterwork. Try remaking The Godfather or Lawrence of Arabia. YOU CAN’T!! It’s blasphemy. The only reason this was remade was because the original was a foreign film and studios think American audiences would rather watch a westernized version of a foreign movie than read some subtitles for a change, which is sadly kind of true. Anyway, Brolin definitely gives it his all, but I wasn’t a big fan of his performance. Samuel L. Jackson was a pleasant surprise though!! Also, the overall look of the film is not that great in my opinion, the visuals looked shoddy, the gore near the end looked completely fake, I almost burst out laughing because it looked so bad. I haven’t seen the original Oldboy in a while but I’m pretty sure they tweaked the plot a little bit too and they definitely made it A LOT worse. They made it weirder. But I could be mistaken, I mean I haven’t watched the original in a while, I need to rewatch it and cleanse my mind of this abomination. The visuals just really threw me off, I mean what was that final shot and what in the world was that fight scene. It looked cheap and fake. I’m sorry Spike but this is just bad. This is the reason why I wasn’t that excited to watch Highest 2 Lowest but I feel as though he has a lot more control over that movie’s vision as opposed to this one. The studio meddled too much with this and turned it into a dumpster fire. Overall, don’t watch this unless you want to watch all of Spike’s movies or if you are a sadist or masochist. Honestly if you are that kind of person, this movie is perfect for you.
Damn, this is the first Spike movie I’ve seen that I hated!!! I should’ve known this would be bad from the get go when the credits proclaimed this as “A Spike Lee Film” instead of “A Spike Lee Joint”. Lee probably wasn’t happy with how the movie turned out just like the rest of us, but I’m sure even if there were to be a director’s cut released, it still wouldn’t be all that good, better for sure, but it WOULD NOT live up to the 2003 Korean masterpiece directed by the great Park Chan-wook from which this movie was based. Remakes don’t work when they are remaking a critically acclaimed masterwork. Try remaking The Godfather or Lawrence of Arabia. YOU CAN’T!! It’s blasphemy. The only reason this was remade was because the original was a foreign film and studios think American audiences would rather watch a westernized version of a foreign movie than read some subtitles for a change, which is sadly kind of true. Anyway, Brolin definitely gives it his all, but I wasn’t a big fan of his performance. Samuel L. Jackson was a pleasant surprise though!! Also, the overall look of the film is not that great in my opinion, the visuals looked shoddy, the gore near the end looked completely fake, I almost burst out laughing because it looked so bad. I haven’t seen the original Oldboy in a while but I’m pretty sure they tweaked the plot a little bit too and they definitely made it A LOT worse. They made it weirder. But I could be mistaken, I mean I haven’t watched the original in a while, I need to rewatch it and cleanse my mind of this abomination. The visuals just really threw me off, I mean what was that final shot and what in the world was that fight scene. It looked cheap and fake. I’m sorry Spike but this is just bad. This is the reason why I wasn’t that excited to watch Highest 2 Lowest but I feel as though he has a lot more control over that movie’s vision as opposed to this one. The studio meddled too much with this and turned it into a dumpster fire. Overall, don’t watch this unless you want to watch all of Spike’s movies or if you are a sadist or masochist. Honestly if you are that kind of person, this movie is perfect for you.
