Rent The Magnificent Seven (2016)

The magnificent seven hundred explosions, shooting and deaths. Over-the-top? Surely not. - The Magnificent Seven review by Strovey

It is a confident film-maker who remakes the 1960’s seminal film The Magnificent Seven. No amount of confidence or star cast is going to make the film good if you don’t get it right.

With some beautiful cinemtography and fabulous scenery as credit in the ‘bank’ as it was Antoine Fuqua frontloads the film with his go-to actors from his previous films in the shape of Denzel Washington (Training Day, The Equalizer) and Ethan Hawke (Training Day) and an actor whose star is high in the firmament Chris Star. Unfortunately on the whole the film fails to live up to the premise.

The opening set-ups are entertaining if a little laboured, in particular the hand-holding and giant sign-posting that lets us know that Peter Sarsgaard’s character ‘Sir Jasper Naughty-Bonce’ is evil, like totally evil dude, was bordering on pantomime. I understand that if you looking for a realistic portrayal of the West in the late 1800s then don’t watch this film. This is definitely pop-corn, brain on hold, fare. Nevertheless, I do feel that my intelligence does not need to be insulted in quite the way it was from time-to-time.

As entertaining as those opening scenes were the ending scenes were as disappointing. I get the feeling that the Marvel Universe style denouement is infecting action films of all types. This film had explosions, as many baddies and goodies being, shot, stabbed, blown to bits and generally murdered as the average small war. After the end credits rolled the people of Rose Creek need no longer worry about n’er-do-wells as the local population of them had been totally eradicated, along with ninety-percent of the town folk.

Denzil Washington and Chris Pratt are always good value for money and the rest of the cast acquit themselves well in general. Peter Sarsgaard and Vincent D’Onofrio veer into pantomime territory on several occasions, particularly as D’Onofrio seems to be playing some sort of Brian Blessed hybrid. The need for every diverse type of population to represented in the ‘seven’ does not get me frothing at the mouth and red-faced as some reviewers and I can understand the modernising of the story but I’m not sure it was necessary in my view.

The Magnificent Seven was really The Average Seven and although the relentless drive for entertaining the multiplex masses has probably forced the hand of the director and producers I’m sure without such a big broad brush and some muted colours there was a good modern remake of The Magnificent Seven in there. Instead, this was slathered with the bright explosions of the ‘Why’s he doing that?’ crowd.

Antoine Fuqua can make good films and tell good stories, The Magnificent Seven was a good film and a great story. It should have worked but in reality it didn’t. It’s a shame.

Watchable remake - The Magnificent Seven review by Alphaville

A grand old-fashioned western but one that springs no surprises and has no real high points. The over-familiar plot holds little interest and neither do the sketchily drawn seven characters. The gunfights are never more than perfunctory because the baddies can’t shoot straight and the Seven seem invincible until one or another goes out in a blaze of glory. The Wild Bunch it ain’t.

The retro score by James (Titanic) Horner is also a drag. It’s hard to be critical because he wrote it without seeing any footage and was then killed in a plane crash. The resulting bland music is more of an homage to him that a help to the film.

Yet director Antoine Fuqua never makes a boring film and it bumbles along nicely at a good pace. It’s watchable if only to notice what it lacks. The best thing about it is the New Mexico scenery, built for wide-screen and luminously filmed with Fuqua’s sweeping camera. If only it held more resonance in the manner of modern Western classics such as Unforgiven and Open Range.

Watchable but Average! - The Magnificent Seven review by CS

In general agreeance with the other two comments on this film, it really is a new update of the classic, nothing new added, simply a remake staying true to the original. However what was really noticeable was the unnecessary need to have such a multi-cultural cast, even when it's not necessary or detracts from the storyline itself! There is a Native American Indian, an East Asian, a Black Man, two White Men, a Mexican and a Religious nutcase! It seems as though they felt the need to cater for all races and also for the religious crowd out there, when it really wasn't necessary and adds nothing to the film at all! In fact I found the religious character really annoying, as it was way too heavy, shoving it in our faces all the time and for me this character ruined the whole film! It was an ok film, Denzel gives a strong performance as do most of the cast, but the script wasn't anything special and the bad guy lacked any sense of gravitas, in fact the bad guy was the weakest character in the whole film!