Oldboy 2013

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: A vivid yet academic remake, this Oldboy is shorter, leaner and lesser. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Relentlessly gruesome, self-consciously shocking and pretty much pointless. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Why would we want to watch a chronicle of Joe's agonies, and the agonies he gets to inflict on others? Passing it up would be the best revenge. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: The picture is a blood-soaked farrago of physical and psychological torture, though it's not nearly as extreme as the Korean version. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: Revenge, like octopus, is a dish best served cold, but Spike Lee's disappointingly straight remake of "Oldboy" is a lukewarm meal at best. Read more

A.A. Dowd, AV Club: Lending real gravity to his character's single-minded crusade, [Brolin is] the best reason to give the film a chance. Read more

Kerry Lengel, Arizona Republic: For fans of the Quentin Tarantino school of grisly, outre noir, Lee's take on "Oldboy" has a lot to offer ... Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: If Park's film is the work of a brilliant but soulless surgeon, Lee's is that of a gifted provocateur amusing himself until the next real thing comes around. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: What, exactly, drew Lee to an "Oldboy" remake? You can't really tell from watching the film. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: Lee is very good at creating a sense of free-floating dread, but he, and his screenwriter Mark Protosevich, don't have a real flair for pulp (or, as with David Lynch, the hallucinatory horrors of pulp). Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: Try as he might, Lee cannot repurpose this empty genre tale to be deeper than it is. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: Josh Brolin, with his loping physique and handsome, hangdog scowliness, is like Nick Nolte's volatile younger brother, and in Spike Lee's rivetingly intense Oldboy, he gives a terrific and harrowing performance as a slimeball out for justice. Read more

David Ehrlich, Film.com: It isn't just Spike Lee's worst movie, it's practically his Wicker Man. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: Everything is wrong with [Spike] Lee's version of Park Chan-wook's notorious, super-violent super-action-thriller. For one thing, it's far from super. Not the quality, per se (although, for Lee, that's off, too), but the energy. Read more

John DeFore, Hollywood Reporter: Dark, violent thriller stands on its own despite its revered predecessor. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: There is a brashness in the risks taken, the very imperfections revealing an artist finding new inspiration. For Lee, this weird, brutal film seems to have freed him. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: So much of Oldboy works so well that it's a huge disappointment when the movie loses its nerve in the climax, opting for a radically different and less subversive ending than the original. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: Few directors could naturally jibe with such weird material, and Lee isn't one of them. Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: Hollywood's wildest cinematic freakout since "Shutter Island" is a remake of-and an improvement on-the Korean original, from 2003. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: If you've already seen and liked Chan-wook's film, there's no real reason to see this; if you've already seen and hated it, there are a hundred reasons to turn away. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: [Oldboy] is rife with blood, quirkiness, four-letter poetry and general ickiness. While much of the movie feels like a major filmmaker slumming in genre territory, there are still a few ripe mysteries to be solved. Read more

A.O. Scott, New York Times: If you have seen the earlier version, you can occupy yourself with point-by-point comparisons. If not, you may find yourself swerving between bafflement and mild astonishment ... Read more

Michael Sragow, Orange County Register: Spike Lee turns Josh Brolin into a full-bodied antihero in this all-American remake of a Korean cult movie, but the story remains a bloody bag of tricks. Read more

Associated Press: Much of the dialogue is stilted (several scene are laughable) and the melodrama feels unmoored without the lurid, baroque atmosphere of Park's film -- which, after all, was kind of the whole point. Read more

David Hiltbrand, Philadelphia Inquirer: Brings to mind Samuel Johnson's famous 18th-century witticism, likening a woman preaching to a dog walking on its hind legs: "It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all." Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Sometimes I don't understand the Hollywood mindset. Who thought remaking Park Chan-wook's 2003 cult classic, Oldboy, was a good idea? Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: What's onscreen feels squeezed, truncated and curiously embalmed. It's got no kick to it... Oldboy just lies there like old news that's not worth a second thought. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: I would divide the potential audience for "Oldboy" into two groups: Those who will be disappointed and those who will be bewildered. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Oldboy is an immersion into pure twistedness. The purity of its twistedness is its saving grace. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: Viewers who are coming to it cold will, most likely, leave feeling enervated, confused, and queasy. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The suspense is taut, provided you can prevent yourself from frequently yelling, "That's not possible." Read more

Bruce Ingram, Chicago Sun-Times: [An] enormously unlikely but still satisfying paean to payback. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Globe and Mail: Lee's is more of a hard-edged, hammer-and-nail noir than Park's existential horror, and it's far less concerned with the internal state of Joe's mind than the external havoc it creates. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Spike Lee's Oldboy "reinterpretation" hoists the hammer and baseball bat with vigour, but fails to make its own mark. Read more

Todd Gilchrist, TheWrap: Lee's failure to choose between movie-ness and deeper meaning leaves the concept under-explored, which is why his version of "Oldboy," in part and as a whole, is momentarily gobsmacking but never quite as resonant as it should be. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Weaknesses from the original remain, including a mustache-twirling villain straight out of a Bond film (Sharlto Copley) and a Freudian master plan that unravels the more you think about it. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Graphically gruesome when it means to be a provocative look at vengeance. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Village Voice: The remake that came too late, so benign and unmemorable that not even people who loved Park Chan-wook's 2003 original will be able to muster much outrage. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: The violence ... is gruesome - oodles of CG blood and brain matter - but out of scale. It's shock for shock's sake. It doesn't track. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Just as depraved and depressing as the original. Read more