A remake of a remake isn’t something that would usually interest me. The fact that I usually loathe the thought of remakes in general would give that away. However, 2016’s version of The Magnificent Seven is a remake of a remake that is the exception that goes against the average perspective I have when it comes to things like this. It turns out to not only be good, but also something that is able to legitimately stand on its own.
With the town of Rose Creek on the verge of being taken over by a vicious industrialist known as Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), the desperate pleas of Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) is one of the few things that convinces Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington), a sharpshooting bounty hunter to help out. The other is obviously money. In taking the job, Chisolm rounds up six other deadly men from a wide variety of backgrounds with the hopes of achieving the difficult task of fending off a deadly group with plenty of firepower.
I expected 2016’s The Magnificent Seven to be more comedic than it actually turned out to be. I guess seeing as how Chris Pratt was in it, it was a fair assessment, but they don’t really go that direction like I thought they would. While they allow him and Vincent D’Onofrio to be funny, the movie and the rest of the characters are more serious the vast majority of the time.
This gives the picture a chance to be mature even though it’s rated PG-13. The way it’s handled with the serious tone makes it seem more like a movie that’s strictly for adults even though it isn’t when you see how clean and safe it actually is. That is usually a bad thing for things like this, but Magnificent Seven is so fun, that you can give it a pass for not delivering all of the blood they normally would if it was properly rated.
As the movie moves along, it improves and is also good at showcasing the characters at various times. During this process, you get an idea of who just about each significant character is. This works here because it doesn’t slow down the picture or feel forced into anything that’s taking place. Because of this, just about everything stays on a straight line and allows the film’s plot to seamlessly move forward.
The only guy that we really don’t get to know much about is the villain. That’s not to say that they dig deep into the other characters, but they do give us something in terms of their personalities. With the main antagonist, he’s actually not in the movie a great deal and is pretty much the kind of one-dimensional villain that we’re used to seeing. In a way, most of the characters are one-dimensional, but you get to see them a bit and relate to them even if we don’t always know a great deal about their backgrounds.
The bottom line is The Magnificent Seven is entertaining all the way through. It’s a straight forward, carefully crafted piece of cinema that serves its purpose of wanting to create a remake while also building its own brand. With so many movies based on earlier films being released these days, that’s something that’s clearly difficult to do. But here, the people behind it managed to accomplish that by making something familiar while also making it unique.
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Cast:
Denzel Washington
Chris Pratt
Ethan Hawke
Vincent D’Onofrio
Byung-Hun Lee
Manuel Garcia-Rulfo
Martin Sensmeier
Peter Sarsgaard
Haley Bennett
Film Length: 133 minutes
Release Date: September 23, 2016
Distributor: Columbia Pictures
- Score - 7.5/107.5/10
