Grade: D
Recommendation: No. Stay home and watch “Deadwood” on Amazon prime.
Verdict: “The Magnificent Seven” remake is boring and bland, in spite of its overpowered cast.
Surprise, surprise, “The Magnificent Seven” is not fun. Who’da thunk?
“Magnificent Seven” is a remake of the 1960 movie, which is itself a remake of “Seven Samurai,” the 1954 Kurosawa classic that’s widely regarded as one of the most influential movies of all time. The premise to “Magnificent Seven” is simple: it’s 1879 and bad guy Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) takes over the small settlement of Rose Creek, slaughtering innocent gentlefolk left and right. Emma (Haley Bennett) hires bounty hunter Sam (Denzel Washington) to put together a crew to help take back the town.
The only real draw to “Magnificent Seven” is its star-studded cast. We’ve got Washington and Sarsgaard at the helm, plus it-boy Chris Pratt (notably keeping his shirt on the whole time), Ethan Hawke and freakin’ Vincent D’Onofrio, as well as some recognizable faces (you might know Bennett from “Hardcore Henry” or critically acclaimed South Korean actor Lee Byung-hun from a bunch of tasty action films). Pratt might be phoning in a bit– there are a couple of moments in which he seems to be too into a ridiculous line to really be taking it seriously– but the rest act their butts off, to various degrees of success. Washington specifically has a few full-power moments I would expect in one of his more Oscar-oriented performances. Good on him for giving it his all, ya know?
But other than that, the movie is “meh” through and through. It shares bones with its predecessors, but lacks basically everything that made them work, the moments of humanity in the crew and the relationship-building between them and the townspeople. The titular seven are barely archetypes– we spend a lot of time with them but none have any discernable qualities, other than being good at killing. Oh, and their races– can’t forget the Asian assassin and Mexican outlaw. It’s hard to say it’s racially insensitive when the Asian and Mexican guy are no more stereotyped than anybody else.
Strong characters aren’t always a necessity for a Western (Clint Eastwood’s Man with No Name isn’t particularly deep), but “Magnificent Seven” doesn’t even have any Western qualities to build upon instead. I was sitting there thinking, “Did anybody working on this watch a Western in preparation for the shoot?” It overuses the stereotypical Western centerpieces, especially the “Mexican standoff” (it feels like there’s one every scene!), and ignores the sweeping landscapes and moral questioning that make the genre so potent.
I’m quick to blame a lot of this on the influence of Nic Pizzolatto, the writer who gave us the half wonderful, half unwatchable “True Detective.” He’s got co-writing credit here with Richard Wenk and the dry characters and unnecessary gimmicks remind me of everything bad about True Detective season 2.
Notably the 1960 version was scorned by some upon its release as critics held it up to the impeccable “Seven Samurai,” and only grew in acclaim as time passed and its stars gained more fame. Maybe one day our “Magnificent Seven” will become a classic, develop a devoted following many years from now. Maybe– but probably not. Comparisons to its previous iterations aside, our version stands alone as a strikingly hollow movie, and boredom doesn’t ripen with age.
