What if somebody imprisoned Spike Lee for twenty years? No, wait, hear me out. Suppose we just, you know, took him, put him in a small, windowless hotel room locked from the outside, fed him nothing but mediocre Chinese food until 2033. We wouldn’t have to worry about him interrupting NBA games or making social statements or whether he can find directorial relevance just once after he turned 55. I suppose he did make Inside Man; but he also made Red Hood Summer. Bleah. We could put him away and keep him there until nobody can remember or care he was once friends with Michael Jordan, and when he complains or asks why, you could simply say, “two words: Mars Blackmon.”
It wouldn’t have pegged Oldboy as the kind of tale that gets remade every decade, yet here we are. Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin) is a Douchebag with a capital D. Aggressive, belligerent, disrespectful, drunk … the list could go on, be we only get to meet him for five minutes before tragedy strikes. In a success-or-fired business meeting, Joe wins the client and then blows the deal by hitting on client’s wife. Smooth. And it was a slimy pass as well, the kind that makes you at the very least wonder why you’d care about this man and at the most swear off the entire gender. His behavior doesn’t get any better with the addition of alcohol, but it does make him easier to capture and Joe wakes up naked and alone in the windowless hotel room reserved for Spike Lee. This is where he’ll stay, without explanation, for the next 20 years. I was a tad put off he doesn’t discover the camera until year 15. Hmmm.
And then one day out of the blue, Joe wakes up in a box in a field. He is clean. He has an envelope with cash. This is where he has two choices. The first is forget the nasty business, accept wonderful freedom and leave forever for somewhere pleasant. The second is where “why?’ happens and a movie follows. Plagued by curiosity, Joe has to know where his life went. The game makers lead him to Marie (Elizabeth Olsen), a do-gooder who can’t resist this Josh-mess. Joe follows the clues back to his prison so we can recreate the hammer-corridor scene from the original. This is where the film loses me. The fight choreography is fine; yeah, there’s more Hammertime than “U Can’t Touch This,” but his attackers seem to be going at him with Wiffle products. Geez, with a claw hammer, I might have a chance against Nerf weapons, too. What, nobody’s carrying?! You can get away with that crap in Korea, but don’t try to convince me that in the land where half the population truly and inexplicably believes we’re better off if everybody is armed, no THUGS go at him with more than a 
balsa 2×4.
I’m also disturbed by the kidnapping-for-profit industry. There’s money in this? Is there a private prison somewhere financed by millionaire assholes who live for grudge-holding? I’m not sure I wish to know the answer to that one.
Spike Lee’s Oldboy could be the ultimate unnecessary remake. It’s not that the Spike Lee version is bad, or valueless, or without emotion or jarring violence, it’s just, say, two-alarm chili to Chan-wook Park’s Korean original five-alarm. It’s like hot cocoa without the little marshmallows or a peahen compared to a peacock. This Oldboy remains an intriguing, if grizzly, mystery. (Thank you, Spike, btw, for avoiding the tongue scene — very glad to be spared that translation). Josh Brolin’s stock seems to have dropped of late; his performance here does nothing to promote himself, although it won’t really hurt him, either. Elizabeth Olsen remains my favorite rising star, but this is not the role where you suddenly recognize that she’s neither Maggie Gyllenhaal nor a younger Vera Farmiga.
With all the tact of fox
And the brains of a sackful of rocks
Joe was taken
Years later awaken
Hey, pal, what’s in the box?
Rated R, 104 Minutes
D: Spike Lee
W: Mark Protosevich
Genre: Unnecessary remake
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Korean film nationalists, overjoyed they’ve one-upped Hollywood.
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Fans of the original expecting the same level of cringe.
