20 Recent Movie Remakes NOBODY Asked For

15. Highest 2 Lowest

Even with a filmmaker as respected as Spike Lee, it's tough to rouse much enthusiasm for a remake of a classic Akira Kurosawa film, especially given that Lee's previous remake of an international hit movie - Park Chan-wook's Oldboy - was a sheer disaster.

Kurosawa's much-loved 1963 police procedural High and Low is still an extremely watchable masterpiece of world cinema, and even accepting the prospect of Lee bringing something fresh to the table with a contemporary take centered around the American music industry, starring Denzel Washington no less, it was easy to be skeptical.

And indeed, this is one of the most baffling, ill-conceived films of Lee's career.

From its laughably out-of-place musical score to Lifetime-tier dialogue and a strangely lethargic performance from Washington, it's a fascinatingly off-key work from one of our greatest filmmakers.

In that respect it's probably more interesting and memorable than a more straight-laced remake, but it also can't help but feel like a near-criminal waste of so much talent in front of and behind the camera.