MakoSucks

While I loved the original Chan-Wook Park version, I still saw Spike Lee's version as it's own, decent film,It starts off surprisingly well. It's modernized with smart phones, and less suspension of belief, but it loses steam and the pacing feels very rushed. Especially towards the second half of the film, the ending was so matter of fact, that you really don't find it all that shocking, emphasized by the lack of style. It wraps up in a nice little package. All that was missing was some happy licensed pop music at the end.

Spike Lee's film was cut down from 3 hours, and missing character development. You know, to make the viewer sympathize with the characters, besides Josh Brolin? Even with that being said, All the symbolism and mystery is still watered down, or spoon fed to you every five minutes. The original ending hits hard because it originated from a point of innocence in both the protagonist and antagonist's lives. This new and improved ending nullifies that by making the antagonist damaged before anything Josh Brolin's character ever did. What's really telling of how badly this missed the mark is that hey never even had the time to explain why the f*&# the movie is called Oldboy for f*&#'s sake!

As it's own film, it's still fairly decent but not worth watching again. Comparing it to The original though, I can't help but feel like Spike Lee's Oldboy has more in common with that Romeo and Juliet scene from Hot Fuzz, than Chan Wook Park's symphonic masterpiece.