Oldboy
FilmDistrict | Release Date: November 27, 2013 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
49
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
12
Mixed:
18
Negative:
11
Watch Now
Stream On
Buy on
Stream On
Stream On
Expand

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
91
Entertainment WeeklyOwen GleibermanNov 26, 2013
In the end, the most impressive performance may be Spike Lee's. He uses skill without gimmickry, flash without fuss, to tap the mesmerizing soul of this pulp. Read full review
88
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Geoff PevereNov 27, 2013
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 full review
88
Chicago Sun-TimesBruce IngramNov 26, 2013
It’s generally a respectful homage that has every bit as much stylishness and visual flair. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnNov 26, 2013
It's been so long since Lee made such a thoroughly amusing work that fans should have no problem excusing its messiness. But make no mistake... Oldboy is all over the place, sometimes playing like a subdued melodrama and elsewhere erupting into flamboyance and gore. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzNov 27, 2013
This American version of Park Chan-Wook's Korean thriller is Lee's most exciting movie since "Inside Man" — not a masterpiece by any stretch, but a lively commercial genre picture with a hypnotic, obsessive quality, and an utter indifference to being liked, much less approved of. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleNov 26, 2013
Oldboy is an immersion into pure twistedness. The purity of its twistedness is its saving grace. Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesBetsy SharkeyNov 26, 2013
Oldboy suggests a filmmaker doing almost as much soul-searching as the main character. 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 full review
70
Arizona RepublicKerry LengelNov 26, 2013
Surprisingly, the movie doesn’t bear much of the stylistic stamp we’ve come to expect of Lee, who’s in his generic journeyman mode here. But aside from a satisfyingly clever new direction in the denouement, what distinguishes the remake from the original is its cartoonishness. Read full review
67
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Nov 27, 2013
For better and worse, Lee’s Oldboy is a more somber affair. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezNov 27, 2013
One of the surprises of Spike Lee’s Oldboy is just how dark the film dares to get. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeTy BurrNov 27, 2013
Lee’s Oldboy stands on its own. It just stands a bit shorter. Read full review
63
Washington PostMichael O'SullivanNov 27, 2013
In general, Lee directs with less visual verve than Park. Anchored by Brolin, who brings an almost simian physicality to his portrayal, this Oldboy feels simultaneously less showy, less nightmarish and less epic than the original. Read full review
60
The GuardianTom ShoneNov 29, 2013
Oldboy is lively but numb — checked out, as if Lee were directing it following a period of intense convalescence. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottNov 27, 2013
Most normal people will not see this as a "pleasant" film -- I hope that's the case, anyway -- but it certain makes you feel something. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinNov 27, 2013
Watching Spike Lee’s decent but unmemorable remake of Park Chan-wook’s 2003 revenge picture "Oldboy," I kept trying to figure out why he’d done it. Read full review
60
The New York TimesA.O. ScottNov 26, 2013
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, wondering how a movie that works so hard to generate intensity and surprise can feel so routine and bereft of genuine imagination. Read full review
60
Time OutJoshua RothkopfNov 26, 2013
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. Give credit to Lee for staying fresh, even if this feels like slumming. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierNov 26, 2013
Leave it to Spike Lee to deliver one of the strangest, most off-putting movies for the Thanksgiving holiday. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterJohn DeForeNov 26, 2013
While Lee leaves some of Park's more memorable outrages behind, he and screenwriter Mark Protosevich find one or two ways to up the taboo-testing ante, small surprises that retain the tale's edge without pushing into the realm of exploitation. Read full review
58
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerNov 27, 2013
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. Read full review
58
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallNov 26, 2013
Spike Lee's remake of 2003's Oldboy is as brutally perplexing as the South Korean original, and needless for both its repetition and tweaks. Nothing is really lost in translation, or gained. Read full review
50
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliDec 4, 2013
While few will debate Lee's ability as a director, this isn't close to being in his wheelhouse. Oldboy cries out for a Brian DePalma, a Quentin Tarantino, or even a David Lynch. The end result bears out the suspicion that Lee isn't right for the material, nor it for him. Read full review
50
TimeRichard CorlissNov 27, 2013
Like Martin Scorsese’s "The Departed," a bloated Americanizing of the Hong Kong cop movie "Infernal Affairs," the Lee Oldboy will startle newbies with its story ingenuities and morbid revelations, while leaving connoisseurs of the source film wondering why Hollywood couldn’t have left great enough alone. Read full review
50
USA TodayClaudia PuigNov 26, 2013
Graphically gruesome when it means to be a provocative look at vengeance. Read full review
50
McClatchy-Tribune News ServiceRoger MooreNov 26, 2013
Lee, in a sort of humorless send-up of Tarantino, substitutes kinky for mystery, explicit sex and violence for sex and violence with real shock value. When it comes to this remake, you plainly can’t teach an oldboy like Lee new tricks. Read full review
42
The PlaylistCharlie SchmidlinNov 26, 2013
While Lee edges in enough unique elements to argue a second look at the brutal revenge tale, his lean, blackly comic result is transcendent only in fits and starts, stripping away much of its thematic and emotional heft into one of the most frustratingly accomplished disappointments this year. Read full review
40
Total FilmCurtis WoloschukDec 9, 2013
To its credit, Spike Lee’s remake isn’t a slavish imitation. On the other hand, its grit is a grey substitute for the original’s vision and verve. Disappointing. Read full review
40
SalonAndrew O'HehirNov 27, 2013
This one has its technical virtues, but it’s frankly kind of a muddle, and may have been doomed from the outset. I would divide the potential audience for Oldboy into two groups: Those who will be disappointed and those who will be bewildered. Read full review
40
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovNov 27, 2013
From Lee’s point of view, I can understand the enticing challenge of taking on a revered cult film Oldboy. But a pair of ill-conceived casting choices can jolt you out of the film, or worse, elicit the rolling of eyes and barely stifled giggle. Read full review
40
The DissolveMatt SingerNov 27, 2013
This is a very confused movie, designed for an audience that doesn’t exist. Read full review
39
Film.comDavid EhrlichNov 26, 2013
A slumming Spike Lee is still better than most directors at the top of their game, but Oldboy isn’t just Lee’s worst movie, it’s practically his “Wicker Man”. Read full review
38
Philadelphia InquirerDavid HiltbrandNov 27, 2013
The sheer brutality of Oldboy is stunning, especially a deeply disturbing scene in which Brolin tortures Samuel L. Jackson. But this is an unrelievedly grim and hermetic experience throughout, the cinematic equivalent of blunt trauma. Read full review
38
Rolling StonePeter TraversNov 27, 2013
What's onscreen feels squeezed, truncated and curiously embalmed. It's got no kick to it. Read full review
38
New York PostLou LumenickNov 26, 2013
The feel-bad movie of the holiday season, Spike Lee’s often-repellent Americanized reimagining of Korean director Chan-Wook Park’s twisty 2004 revenge thriller Oldboy is relentlessly gruesome, self-consciously shocking and pretty much pointless. Read full review
38
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsNov 26, 2013
The revenge in Oldboy is neither sweet nor sour; it's just drab. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineJesse CataldoNov 26, 2013
Spike Lee's version loses the one thing that really worked in the original, the sense of moral complication emerging out of the intertwined action of two men hell-bent on retribution. Read full review
30
SlateDana StevensNov 27, 2013
His (Lee) Oldboy is relentlessly unpleasant and difficult to watch, without offering audiences much moral or aesthetic payoff for its hour and 40 minutes of graphic violence and abject degradation. Oldboy is both original and uncompromising, I’ll give it that—it just doesn’t happen to be any good. Read full review
30
VarietyJustin ChangNov 26, 2013
Lee and Protosevich have made a picture that, although several shades edgier than the average Hollywood thriller, feels content to shadow its predecessor’s every move while falling short of its unhinged, balls-out delirium. Read full review
20
The TelegraphTim RobeyDec 5, 2013
Other than sniggering about what an outré stereotype they’ve served up, it’s hard to see how Lee and Copley can justify this performance, which is quite the worst of the year, and sends the whole final act of their movie straight to oblivion. Read full review
10
Village VoiceStephanie ZacharekNov 26, 2013
Colorless and soulless in the extreme, it bears no one's fingerprints at all. There's no reason for this Oldboy to exist. It's so DOA, you stumble out of it wanting to eat something alive. Read full review
0
ObserverRex ReedNov 27, 2013
The longer it drags on, the sillier it gets. A preposterous narrative, illogical red herrings, trick endings, bad acting and—shazam! — Spike Lee turns into M. Night Shyamalan! Read full review
More From This Movie

49 Critic Reviews

4.4 User Reviews

Details & Credits|Trailers

Current Movie Releases
By MetascoreBy User Score
1 81 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple
2 77 Project Hail Mary
3 75 Send Help
4 73 Hoppers
5 72 The Sheep Detectives
SEE ALL
Essential Links
New on Amazon Prime Video
New on Netflix
Coming Soon to DVD/Blu-ray
SEE ALL