The only surprising thing about The Magnificent Seven is the fact that it took this long for someone to finally decide to do a remake. After all, superhero films seem to be getting a reboot every decade, but it took Antoine Fuqua to re-envisage this classic film to. Of course, it is a lot more intimidating to redo a film that is a cult classic in itself.
The original film came out in 1960 and was its-self a remake of the “Seven Samurai” directed by Akira Kurosawa. This time John Sturges was at the wheel and he put together an all-star cast that shared a great chemistry and excellent bravado. Of course, the fact that Elmer Bernstein wrote the iconic score certainly did not harm anything.
This time around Furque does not quite capture the same high spirit as Sturges, but he does manage to add in a lot more shoot-em-up action scenes with close ups on the shots, bodies, and plenty of gunfire. The score originally written by Bernstein gets a few references, but it is left to play during the end credits so it’s up to the cast to really make the audience want to sit through two hours-plus.
The good news is the cast is made up of seven magnificent actors so watching the film is not too rough at all. Denzel Washington leads the rag tag team of cowboys with assistance from Chris Pratt. Haley Bennett is his love interest who begs him to come save the town from the greedy industrialist who is played with quite a bit of flare and fun by Peter Sarsgaard.
(l to r) Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ethan Hawke, Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Vincent D’Onofrio and Martin Sensmeier
In an effort to drive Sarsgaard’s character out of town Washington enlists a crowd of helpers who end up including Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Byung-hun Lee, Manual Garcia- Rulfo, and Martin Sensmeier. The only problem is that the characters lack a proper back story and sometimes it seems like the one is tone is a bit off. It skirts all over the place making it hard for the audience to know what exactly to think.
In the end the action scene during the final showdown brings the film to a close, but even then outside of the action scenes it seems the movie is still missing the heart that it had in its original telling.
Cast
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
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Denzel Washington | … | |
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Chris Pratt | … | |
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Ethan Hawke | … | |
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Vincent D’Onofrio | … | |
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Byung-hun Lee | … | |
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Manuel Garcia-Rulfo | … | |
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Martin Sensmeier | … | |
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Haley Bennett | … |
Emma Cullen
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Peter Sarsgaard | … | |
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Luke Grimes | … |
Teddy Q
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Matt Bomer | … |
Matthew Cullen
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CFY 