Why do we need an English-language remake of Park Chan-wook's prize-winning Korean thriller? Other than catering to an audience unwilling to read subtitles, it's hard to see what Spike Lee has brought to the table, despite his insistence that this is not really a remake, but another interpretation of Garon Tsuchiya and Nobuaki Minegishi's original manga source.

Josh Brolin plays the antihero held captive for 20 years, reduced to his animalistic essentials before being unleashed into the unsuspecting world, hellbent on revenge. Lacking the visual pizzazz of its predecessor which was drenched in the dreamy/ nightmarish hues of mythical allegory, this altogether more mundane rendering merely draws attention to the gaping holes in the incestuous narrative which duly unravels before us. Heads are shattered, bones are cracked, but all to little effect. Meanwhile Elizabeth Olsen gets wasted for the second time this week (she has a thankless throwaway role in Kill Your Darlings), Samuel L Jackson phones in some Bad MoFo silliness, and Sharlto Copley plays the shady nemesis behind all this torture as Richard O'Brien's camper brother. Only the octopus comes out of it smiling…