The Magnificent Seven

Per Gunnar Jonsson 5/16/2024 3:21:15PM 8.4

This is indeed a very good remake of an old classic. As always I am a bit worried when they make a remake of old classics that I liked. This remake is well worth watching though. Despite having a few minor gripes I went for 5 out of 5 stars on this one. Most of you are probably familiar with the story of The Magnificent Seven. Gunslinger gets hired to protect a village from the evil industrialist, he picks 6 buddies to help him, trains the villagers, digs in and sits down and waits for the bad guys to arrive. A simple and well suited story for a bit of Western entertainment. I guess I should mention as well that the original Western is actually not the “real” original. That honor befalls Shichinin no samurai, or Seven Samurai in English, which is a Samurai movie by Akira Kurosawa and with Toshirô Mifune in the lead role. That is the movie from which the plot originates. Anyway, history lesson is over, back to this movie. The movie starts of by introducing the main characters. The bad industrialist is a nasty piece of thug and quickly demonstrates that, although by no means being a blood splatter movie, it is definitely more cruel than what I remember from the original. Next in line is the movies hero played by Denzel Washington and I have to say that he plays the role very well. I liked him as the calm, fairly silent, but oh so deadly gunslinger from the first frame to the last. The other characters fit quite well into their roles as well. I cannot make up my mind about Jack Horne though. I did like the character but at the same time I felt that he was a wee bit to comical at times. I also liked Goodnight Robicheaux quite a lot but the writer really went a bit over the top as far as I am concerned when he actually left. Of course the entire movie plays out as a build up to the final big fight and it is a big fight, that has to be said. However there are plenty of things happening during this build up. Both things involving chemically propelled slugs flying around and things slightly less noisy. Sam Chisolm has to pick up his buddies of course, each one being an opportunity for some cool movie story telling. Then we have the training of the villagers which, as expected, becomes a wee bit comical at times. Oh, and I almost forget that there is a nice little shootout when Chisolm and his buddies introduces themselves to Bogue’s thugs in the village. Said thugs includes the local Sheriff. To no ones surprise I believe. So much for law and order. Time for a new management. So, fast forward to the end and the big fight. It is big, it is well done and it involves plenty of things that go boom. It is plenty of action but it is also the part of the movie where I have the biggest gripe. Okay folks there are going to be a mild spoiler now. With that out of the way, let’s go to the Gatling gun. It is always cool to see a Gatling gun let loose. However can we keep it a bit more realistic please? They fire thousands of bullets without reloading (they make a fuss about reloading later in the movie). Also they position the gun out in the open where it would have been relatively easy to shoot the men operating it. An idea that they finally get much later and manage to goof up. The final solution to taking out the gun is dramatic but quite convoluted. This is the part of the movie that made me go a bit what the fuck! Apart from that I really enjoyed this movie. A good remake of an old classic.

John Chard 5/16/2024 3:22:15PM 8.4

I seek righteousness. But I'll take revenge. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by Nic Pizzolatto and Richard Wenk. Starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett and Peter Sarsgard. Music is by Simon Franglen (also working from a James Horner template) and cinematography by Mauro Fiore. Seven gunmen band together to aid the town of Rose Creek whose inhabitants are being driven out by ruthless capitalist Bartholomew Bogue. We are now in an age of film making where "tagged classics" are no longer sacrosanct. Any number of these "tagged classics" have been and will become viable for remake - reboot - reimaging for newer audiences. It's here, it happens and really there's nothing we can do about it but moan amongst ourselves. John Sturges' 1960 The Magnificent Seven (itself a remake of Kurosawa pic Yojimbo) is a much loved film, and not just in Western lovers circles, it's a film that non Western fans are known to enjoy - and rightly so, it deserves its place as a "tagged classic" and still enthrals over 50 years since its release. So the big studio big wigs and Antoine Fuqua were taking a major gamble remaking a classic remake with their own remake! Undeniably the shadows loom large over the 2016 version, so much weight of expectation, in fact to some it was a stinker of a film even before it was released! Well, as those who have seen it will attest, both the fans and the dissenters, it hasn't raised the bar for the "Seven" formula, but, and this is very key here, the makers wasn't setting out to make a film that down the line would be perceived as a "tagged classic", and this is evident in the ream of extras available on the Blu-ray releases. They achieved what they set out to do, to make a blunderbuss Oater for the modern era to sample, and they have done it with much love, much cool and lashings of technical greatness. Add in a cast clearly enjoying themselves and not letting anyone down, and it's a tasty plate of beans. Fuqua updates things by having his seven as a row of differing ethnicities, which works a treat, and crucially he and his writers are respectful of those characterisations, even if a bit more fleshing out wouldn't have gone amiss. Yet nothing is at a cost to honouring the great Westerns of old. Beautiful landscapes envelope the players, the musical score bouncing around man and nature with homaged sweetness. There's closeups, silhouetted slices of panache, superb stunt work (man and beast), glorious set design, and then there's the action. The fight sequences are excellently constructed, a feast for the eyes and ears, death and slaughter unfurled in brutal but hunger appeasing strokes. There's comic relief about the place, and while much of the dialogue wouldn't have the great poets of yore troubled, there is deepness to be found. Intelligence, too, the addition of PTSD to one of the main players is a notable piece of worth, while how wonderful to find a Western lady character of great substance (Bennett excellent), so good in fact she could have been one of the seven! It's a bare bones story, with a pointless motive revelation tagged on for the finale, while some anachronisms will irritate those bothered by such. But if you are able to judge it on its own terms, as a Western entertainment for this era, and to accept it isn't trying to outdo the source of its inspiration, then a good time can readily be had. 8/10

Filipe Manuel Neto 4/11/2023 12:53:36AM 8.4

**These magnificent seven are politically correct and historically inaccurate, but still far more fun than any sequel to the first film.** “Magnificent Seven” – the original film – was a remake of a Japanese production, and ended up being followed by an unnecessary and rather poor succession of sequels. Only the Japanese original and the early American film remain for posterity, which is a classic in its own right. What we have here turns out to be a remake of the remake, and despite its many merits, it doesn't make us forget our first love. The film has two big points in its favor: the production, luxurious and detailed, and the quality of the cast involved. The script presents the same story that we already know, but structured differently and with different types of actors, in addition to being entirely in the USA, and not in Mexico. That was another point in its favor, as the story of the first film had already been virtually copied, chewed up and dismantled by the sequels that followed. I liked the work of Denzel Washington, an impeccable actor and perfectly comfortable with action movies. Ethan Hawke is very supportive and does some quality solo work as well. Haley Bennett is also excellent. Chris Pratt, Vincent d'Onofrio, Lee Byung-Hun and all the others help, but they don't capture our interest or really stand out. Peter Sarsgaard, the villain, did a good job considering the weaknesses of the material received: the character appears little, has almost nothing to do and, in the end, inside the church, he has a behavior that does not match anything that had happened so far. there. Technically, the film features a huge amount of effects-laden action and high-quality CGI. Antoine Fuqua knew how to understand how the film should be, honoring its predecessor without, however, copying it. The film has excellent effects, good costumes and good sets. The production paid attention to the period details, which does not prevent some minor anachronisms, which were not a substantial problem. The action scenes were well executed and the film will certainly please fans of the genre, and the soundtrack has a certain epic flavor that goes well and harmonizes well with the (already historic) musical theme of the film, which was rerecorded for the new production. These are all qualities, and minor flaws. Where I really feel that the film failed was in the casting of some of the actors. After the recent controversies in the industry (which involved not only the infamous accusations of harassment, but also the discrimination of professionals based on color or ethnicity), there was an effort to counteract bad publicity with actors who were black, Native American or Latinos in all sorts of characters. I'm not against it, but I think there are characters better suited to it than others, and I doubt, for example, that a Native American would pair well with a group of mostly white gunslingers in the late 19th century. As much as political correctness is appeased, it is an idea that goes against historical verisimilitude. Another problem with this film is the attempts to introduce humor, both in the situations and in the dialogues: they are so bad and so shaky that it would be better if they had removed them from the final version.