I wouldn't say Josh Brolin and Sharlto Copley (my most anticipated role of the year) were the perfect choice for this role but Brolin did a good job while Copley left me slightly confused until the end. But whatever shortcomings their characters may had were because of how they were rewritten.
The original version had very, very strong emotional and dramatic impact on the audience at the end, but this one never even reached a quarter of the Korean version. So that was quite disappointing for me.
Also, I just don't agree with whatever that has been written in for this version as an addition because none of them made sense to me; except one aspect of the story which I can't say here as it would be a spoiler to the original.
There was also this scene with the mice in the first act that was just unnecessary.
What I really want to know is how one who has never seen the original would enjoy this or not. But the problem is, I would not take away the original's opportunity to shock and amaze a viewer so I would never recommend this over the original first.
And that one single piece of action masterclass didn't translate properly here as I felt everything about that sequence looked too choreographed, whereas the Korean version was just raw and poetic.
But as a standalone, it was decent. Well produced. The direction had it's downs but there were more ups. And the acting was also enough overall with what they were given to work with.
The only real bright spot in this version was Elizabeth Olsen. I can now fully understand why she's got so many big projects coming out next year. She's a real talent and she was fantastic in Old Boy.
One last thing that I was confused about, was in the movie the title was split into two words, Old Boy. But on IMDb and RottenTomatoes it's still Oldboy. Such weird inconsistency.
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