SINGAPORE - Attempting to take on Korean director Park Chan Wook’s classic vengeance flick Old Boy is a tall order, but having Malcolm X and Inside Man director Spike Lee give it a shot isn’t a bad choice. Still, with the original merely 10 years old this year, does this “reimagination” have a point at all?

Josh Brolin stars as Joe Doucett, an absent, drunken father who’s more than happy to put the moves on business partners’ wives while missing his daughter’s birthday. But it’s obvious that Joe’s screwed over too many people - he finds himself kidnapped and blamed for his wife’s murder, and living out a 20-year imprisonment by an unknown captor. The only thing keeping him alive is the knowledge that his daughter is still alive.

For those who fear that the American version of Old Boy is a direct copy, Lee has tried to bring it forward into the new era, with the tech of 2013 becoming a key way of driving the plot forward. Fans of the original will be delighted to know that Lee has managed to twist one of the classic scenes of the original. (Also spot a guest-starring cephalopod.)

There’s enough sickness and depravity in here to somehow keep one captivated - Doucett goes from one black pit into another before he can find any redemption. The action moves forward snappily, and barring one plot-explaining moment that grinds everything to a halt, Old Boy doesn’t leave much time for things to sink in.

What’s really tiring, however, is the main villain’s motivations, which somehow makes him nothing more than a pantomime villain and his rage against Doucett seriously unwarranted. Doucett himself presents another problem - how can you root for a hero that barely has any redeeming value, purely driven by revenge?

In the end, the movie creaks and moans under the weight of expectation. Still, what redeems this version of Old Boy is Lee’s attempt to bring his own stylistic flourishes to the movie. It’s a pity that Lee’s “reimagined” ending does little to match up against the original. Brolin’s acting is also great, especially as the movie nears its end, but with the actor recently checking himself into rehab, maybe it really wasn’t acting, after all?