Wow. It's been about a month since I've checked into this thread... Here are my most memorable viewings...
Oldboy (2013)
I should have known better... But I let my curiosity get the best of me.
Oldboy is one of my absolute favorite movies and Chan-Wook Park being one of my favorite directors... With that context, as soon as I heard that there was going to be a remake, my reaction was
Why?
We can debate the value of remakes back and forth (and have, endlessly on this forum) - There are a few camps in regards to remakes - The camp wherein the Auteur takes a different view of source material (examples: The Thing and The Fly) or there camp wherein the director is pretty damn faithful to the original (examples: Let Me In, Psycho). Then there are the remakes that just tweak the original a bit (examples: The Grudge, Quarantine).
I'm a fan of remakes where they either take a different stance on the source material; I LOVE both The Thing and The Fly. I also appreciate that third category, where the remake is similar but with some tweaks (I actually thought that both The Grudge and Quarantine weren't that bad).
But as for the straight retelling... I don't understand it - I thought that Let The Right One In was such a masterpiece; why did it need to be remade? Granted, Let Me In was solid, but completely unnecessary.
Lee's remake of Oldboy falls more in the "Tweak" camp where he remakes MOST of the original, but makes changes slightly... For example...
[SPOILERS]
- Our captured Oldboy draws a face on a pillow and hugs it. I should feel empathy (I suppose) but I thought it was a hilarious reimagining of Wilson the Volleyball. This is only worthy of note because Brolin's performance was so abysmal, this was the first point where I almost turned the movie off.
- The torture scene between Oldboy and the man who kept him (not our villain, but the one who owns the giant prison-building) was pretty brutal - He cuts slits into his neck and threatens to pull the head off. I guess that's points FOR this movie on a scale of one and incredibly violent.
- Instead of incest between a brother (our Villain) and his sister, it's incest between the sister and her father. ... Really?
- Instead of seeking revenge for being shamed, the Villain is seeking revenge BECAUSE HIS FATHER WENT ON A MURDER SPREE KILLING THE SISTER, HIS MOTHER, AND TRYING TO KILL HIM. ... Again, really?
- And then, finally, Lee tries to make us believe that Oldboy isn't REALLY doing his own daughter (played by Elizabeth Olsen; the only actor here who is doing a decent job) through an oddly elaborate TV show that Brolin is forced to watch during his captivity... Which is set up to make him believe his daughter is someone else... I guess...?
- Then there's the end - The only change that I think is interesting - After realizing that he's been doing his own daughter, Oldboy decides to go back to the hotel Cell and pays for him to be locked up. This is interesting because Lee is playing with the concept that all of his humanity has been taken from him... But, again, Park did it better.
Ugh. I've spent too much time on this already. My point is that if you're going to make tweaks to the original, they better damn well be good. While the end was an interesting twist, everything was just awful, horrible, terrible.
Also - While I do like Brolin, he was definitely not on his game for this one. Which is really too bad.
Oh, and the Villain is Sharlto Copley (District 9) doing a REALLY weird accent. This guy is really a terrible actor in general (he was f'ing awful in District 9)... He goes too broad and I just find him comical, not threatening.
So - Yeah. This was awful. Terrible. Awful. **pukey emoticon**
Spike Lee - What has become of you??
1/5