Oldboy (2013), R, 1.5 stars

What's Josh Brolin doing in a box?

Remaking a film of such class and high praise is certainly risky for a director's reputation. I mean, it takes a lot of thought and courage to make a remake your own creation and masterpiece. For example, Infernal Affairs was made in Hong Kong in 2002 and Martin Scorsese remade that movie 4 years later into the masterful crime movie The Departed. Even, the Coen brothers remade True Grit and I thought that 2010 movie was superior to the movie with John Wayne. However, this remake of the 2003 South Korean cult film does not work.

Advertising executive Joe Doucet (Josh Brolin) ruins a meeting when he hit on a client's girlfriend. Afterwards, he goes to a bar owned by his buddy, Chucky (Michael Imperioli) and gets drunk. When he spots a woman with a yellow umbrella on his way out of the bar, Joe is knocked unconscious.

After he awakens, Joe finds himself in an imprisoned and isolated hotel room where the mysterious kidnappers provide him with hygiene equipment and Chinese food. He finds out that he was accused of raping and murdering his ex-wife, while Mia was adopted by a family. He does not attempted an obvious suicide, but he spends the next 20 years planning his revenge, working out, and doing a process of elimination to see who might have been responsible for his imprisonment. That mean, this **** is about to go down if he gets out.

Later, he finds out that Mia was willing to forgive Joe for all of his crimes through the television on a show. He is awakened in a box on a field with money and a cellphone. Joe meets Marie Sebastian (Elizabeth Olsen), who wants to provide the medical assistance to help him. Joe refuses her help and is given her card and he goes back to Chucky's bar where he gets a call from the Stranger (Sharlto Copley), who must be the main person behind the kidnapping which deducts everybody who he thinks might have been behind it.

Brolin as Joe and Elizabeth Olsen as Marie.

I am incredibly disappointed and shocked by this movie. The director of this movie is Spike Lee who has made some great movies such as Do The Right Thing, Malcolm X and 25th Hour. Since Inside Man, he has been on a steep decline in terms of making a good or interesting movie. I do not see any talents behind this movie whatsoever. I mean, what was Lee thinking when he was offered the chance to remake this movie?

Josh Brolin does what he can with his character but he looks like that he was bored and confused throughout the movie and wanted to move on to another project because of Lee's supposedly misdirected ways. I could not seem to connect with Joe's agonies in this movie. Elizabeth Olsen gives a subtle and good performance which provides her character as a sweet innocent by standard who wants to help him. However, the sexual chemistry between Joe and Marie does not work without development. Samuel L. Jackson provides some usual heat and Sharlto Copley creates a weaker villain than his superb villain in Elysium.

But, the not-so-sublime performances were assisted by Lee's misdirection and terrible script. The few positive things I can say about this movie was Olsen's performance and the choreography with the fight scenes, especially with Joe against a gang of fighters. This movie was so unnecessary to make because of its ridiculous graphic violence and laughable timing of dialogue. I want to save y'all time and not watch this tenacious remake. This is one of Lee's worst efforts of his career.

*1/2