A big screen remake of John Sturges' classic western The Magnificent Seven, itself a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Seven gun men in the old west gradually come together to help a poor v...
In a time full of remakes and reboots, it's nice to know we can get at least one that doesn't suck.
In order to be fair to this version, I'm in no shape or form going to compare it to the original, which by the way was also a remake of Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai.
I'm just going to come out and say that I enjoyed this retelling even with its razor-thin plot and underdeveloped characters. This movie could've been really great if they had gone all the way and given it the Rated-R treatment it deserves. Director Antoine Fuqua is known to do fairly well in the Rated-R department. The violence and action sequences did push the envelope a bit and could've easily ended up Rated-R territory, but all involved decided to play it safe.
As mentioned, the plot is razor-thin. Its a small town with hard-working people that is threatened by the evil businessman Bogue, wonderfully portrayed by Peter Sarsgaard. Bogue goes in and destroys lives simply because he wants to own the land all these people live on. As a result, some of these townspeople are brutally murdered. The widow of one of these townspeople, Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett), decides to look for help in order to get revenge and stop the evil Bogue. This is where Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington) comes in. Without much thought, Chisolm agrees to help this widow and goes around gathering this crew of highly-skilled fighters. This is where the film begins to lose some points.
The introduction of each one of these characters is so uneventful and uninspired, that I began to wonder what was so special about them aside from their special skills. We're not given enough time to begin to care about any of these guys. There's no real motivation and reason for these guys to join Chisolm's crew. Chisolm says, "Wanna join my crew to stop some bad guys?" and they're like, "OK."
The movie stalled with these introductions.
Throughout the rest of the movie, we are given glimpses into the hearts of each and every one of these guys, but not enough to really care about them. Except, however, for the character of Jack Horne (Vincent D'Onofrio) who by the way stole the show. He's funny and lovable and actually gave us enough to care about him.
Its also not until the very end that we really find out Chisolm decided so quickly to help Cullen in stopping Bogue. Even that one felt forced.
Even with this lack in character development, I did still very much enjoy seeing the interaction between all these guys. It was especially cool to see Ethan Hawke and Washington on screen together once again. They blew us away in Training Day, also directed by Fuqua.
The action sequences were pretty cool and enough to keep me engaged. Also, the movie has the feel of an old-school western with some modern touches.
Is this a movie that could've been really awesome? Yes.
Is this a movie that I'm going to tell people to rush to the theater to see? No.
But if they do, I'm certain they will have a fun time watching it. Overall, I give The Magnificent 7 a solid 7.4/10. It could've been great if they hadn't decided to play it safe and had given us more character development to chew on.
