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The Magnificent Seven (2016)

CofCinci

By CofCinci
in Movies

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SimoneS

SimoneS

(edited)

The Magnificent Seven was a remake of the Seven Samurai, one of the greatest films ever made by Akira Kurosawa, one of the greatest and most influential directors to ever live, The Magnificent Seven is a good movie, maybe even a great one, but IMO, it doesn't come close to the epic masterpiece that is the Seven Samurai so I am cool with Hollywood taking another stab at it.

Edited by SimoneS
SimoneS

SimoneS

(edited)

I'm aware Magnificent Seven was a remake of Seven Samurai, but it wasn't the latter film Hollywood chose to remake now with this film.

 

I think that it is impossible for any director with any talent to remake the Magnificent Seven and not really attempt to make the Seven Samurai, the superior film, with their own style and technique. 

 

"We kept the DNA of the characters from 'Seven Samurai' for [the new] 'Magnificent Seven,'" Fuqua clarified, adding that Kurosawa's film was, tonally, his benchmark throughout production. Especially when it came to the "epic scale" of the film's final battle. 

 

http://www.moviefone.com/2016/04/20/magnificent-seven-remake-denzel-washington/

Edited by SimoneS
  • Love 1
Margherita Erdman

Margherita Erdman

(edited)

I just saw this trailer when taking my kid and his friends to see the new Star Trek movie, hadn't heard it was coming out, and was totally sold on going to see it (Denzel! and it looked and sounded really good on the screen) but then at the end the writing credit came up large, Nic motherf'ing Pizzolato, and that really popped the bubble for me. Feeling super meh about it now. Probably wait for streaming/cable.

Edited by Margherita Erdman
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Morrigan2575

Morrigan2575

Quote

Nic motherf'ing Pizzolato, and that really popped the bubble for me. Feeling super meh about it now. Probably wait for streaming/cable.

Why? I only know the guy from True Detective. Is there something more?

Like others, I had no idea this movie was being made until I saw the Trailer before Star Trek Beyond.  I'm rather ambivalent about this movie. I love Westerns so I'm always happy to see a new Western get released. However, I don't know if I want a remake of The Magnificent Seven.

SeanC

SeanC

I saw it.  It was about what I was expecting going in based on the trailers and reviews -- a middle-of-the-road shoot 'em up.

I'll credit them for handling Haley Bennett's character decently well, even if at times the character feels like she was supposed to be somebody's love interest before they realized that would make no sense since her husband was murdered two weeks earlier and edited out all that.

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Danny Franks

Danny Franks

You know, I don't mind reboots and remakes. I really don't. Sometimes it can be very cool to see a story told from a new perspective, and to ask the audience to consider things in a different way. But why do they have to make so many of them so shit in comparison to the originals? 

I love The Magnificent Seven. It's close to being the perfect movie, with the perfect cast. If you're going to remake it, at least do it justice and actually strive to make a movie worthy of the name. Not a vacuous shoot-em-up that gets by just on the title and on the names in the cast.

I will still see this movie at some point, because I'm still curious, but it's just so disheartening to see reviews that range from mediocre to bad. What happened to good movie making?

Yokosmom

Yokosmom

I saw it last night and benefited, no doubt, by having virtually no memory of the original.  As SeanC said, it is a middle of the road shoot 'em up. As many of the professional critics said, it never really takes off.  However, it did surprise me who the survivors were who made to the end of the film, so there's that.  I would have preferred a few more character moments--they did have some, but just scratched the surface.  Also the elephant in the room was there wasn't much apparent racism towards Denzel's character (riding across the countryside with a white woman in that era would have been more than dangerous).  So it wasn't awful and it wasn't great, but I was more happy to have seen it than not.  Washington, Pratt, Hawke and Saarsgard were the standouts I thought.

And the western scenery was beautiful.  

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thuganomics85

thuganomics85

I saw it last night, and, yeah, it wasn't bad or anything, but it just felt very "by the numbers" and it didn't bring anything new to the table.  Interestingly, when it comes to remakes, I feel like the Western genre does better then the norm (I would go as far as to say the updated versions 3:10 to Yuma and True Grit were even superior to the originals), but remaking something like The Magnificent Seven just doesn't seem like a winning idea.  The stars just aligned with the original film, and I really don't see any way this would have done it justice.

It was fun seeing Denzel Washington in a Western, and he gave his normal, solid performance, even if he could pretty much do it in his sleep at this point.  I actually thought Chris Pratt was hit or miss: it felt like he couldn't decide to be his normal wiseass, goofy self, or a more straight-up, stone-cold gunslinger, and his character was all over the place.  My favorites were probably Ethan Hawke and Byung-hung Lee.  I kind of wanted see more of their adventures.  Vincent D'Onofrio was the scenery chewing champ, as always.  It was like he was trying to combine Tom Hardy's accent in The Revenant with the stereotypical prospector character you see in old cartoons and whatnot.

I haven't seen Haley Bennett since way back in Music & Lyrics, so I'm glad she seems to be back in it between this and the upcoming The Girl on the Train.  Glad they didn't make her character fall for one of the guys, considering husband just got murdered (and was Matt Bomer.  I would think it would take a while to mourn the last of Neal Caffery!)

I did think that the final battle made up for a lot of the weaknesses, and some of the deaths actually surprised me.

calliope1975

calliope1975

I thought the first 10 minutes were terrible. Peter Sarsgaard normally seems like he's about to apologize for murdering you and burying you in his backyard, but this Sarsgaard was dialed up to 12. He was so over the top villainous I couldn't take him seriously.

But, then Denzel showed up and got the gang together, and I ended up having a pretty great time. The characters were all surface but still enjoyable, and I like to think that Ethan Hawke and Byung-Hun Lee were in a relationship. The stunts were fun and the shoot outs were well choreographed. Forgettable but a decent popcorn movie. 

bluvelvet

bluvelvet

I saw it last night and really enjoyed it and I say this as someone who really loved the original.  I just took it as it's own entity and I enjoyed myself. Denzel even rides a horse with swag lol. 

Also surprised at who died and would like to see more of the actor who played the Comanche. The only thing I would have changed is the ending. I would have given Bogue to the townspeople. 

Silver Raven

Silver Raven

I enjoyed it.  Not nearly as good as the original, of course, but if you just look at it for itself, it's decent.  I kept waiting for the iconic theme song, and kept hearing snippets that sounded like they might lead into it, but they waited till the end and then only gave us a little clip of it.  Disappointing.  I did like the characterizations of Ethan Hawke as the Civil War veteran with PTSD and would LOVE to see a back story on Vincent D'Onofrio's character.

WendyCR72

WendyCR72

Just a heads up: I realize by virtue of people coming in to a movie thread that they would/should likely know the outcome, but some may visit out of curiosity and decide whether to even see a flick.

So to be safe and out of courtesy, I have spoiler tagged the above post.

Maybe a few months down the road, it shouldn't be necessary, but for now since it is still in theaters, I'm erring on the side of caution. Thanks!

spaceytraci1208

spaceytraci1208

It wasn't bad, but I think my expectations were too high. I think if the story were more focused on the 7 rather than the townspeople, I could've gotten more into it. 

Denzel was cool, per usual. I thought I was going to enjoy Ethan Hawke (his knickname was "Goodnight"! That's bad-ass!), until his PTSD or whatever was revealed, then I was just annoyed. Byung-hun Lee didn't get enough to do...I was looking forward to some more of that cool knifework, but I guess it's not terribly effective in gun battle *shrug*. The villain wasn't even interesting. 

Ultimately, I just found myself wishing I were watching Tombstone 

Raja

Raja

52 minutes ago, spaceytraci1208 said:

It wasn't bad, but I think my expectations were too high. I think if the story were more focused on the 7 rather than the townspeople, I could've gotten more into it. 

Denzel was cool, per usual. I thought I was going to enjoy Ethan Hawke (his knickname was "Goodnight"! That's bad-ass!), until his PTSD or whatever was revealed, then I was just annoyed. Byung-hun Lee didn't get enough to do...I was looking forward to some more of that cool knifework, but I guess it's not terribly effective in gun battle *shrug*. The villain wasn't even interesting. 

Ultimately, I just found myself wishing I were watching Tombstone 

The town needs to be there as a reason to see the change in the samurai, at least in the 1960 version. In 1954 it was what they did and the ronin had a purpose. Having Denzal being a District deputy Marshal/bounty hunter on a revenge mission does take from Yul Brenner's role of a outlaw finding purpose being given everything, which following the bible story was actually nothing. The other six came close to doing it because it felt like the right thing to do.

 

With seven guys shooting, the knife fighter allows a change up. It was James Coburn in 1960. Just as Red Harvest sniping with his bow and Jim Horn with his tomahawk and brute force wrestling attacks is a different scene then just pulling the revolver that the other three did. It works better than Goodnight or the widow being the snipers isn't so special when nobody else misses either.

nicepebbles

nicepebbles

I've seen The Seven Samurai but way back in high school, which was over 20 years now, and I've never seen the original TM7 so I had no real expectations going into this one. I just hoped it would be enjoyable, which it was. It would've been great if the motivations of all of the guys had been explained better and had more character development. Given the time constraints, I let it slide.

I read a review after that said the seven being of different races was wasted because it there was no character development, or something to that effect. Basically, it was just for show. There's no point to it. I disagree. I think despite its flaws, having different races in the roles is meaningful to show  the default character in these movies doesn't have to be a while male. The movie still works. Not perfectly in this case because given the time frame, having non-white characters that don't deal with the ramifications of being a non-white person in this environment is off.

Epeolatrix

Epeolatrix

The thing I liked most about it was that it was so transparently a movie of grown men who just really wanted to play cowboy. Be the stereotype, ham it up, play with guns, and die heroically / ride off into the sunset with heavy heart and mission completed. It's true that they could have done so with any fantasy Western, but they had the chance to play Magnificent Seven and took it. I thought it was fun, but I went in with no expectations and so was not disappointed.

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Morrigan2575

Morrigan2575

I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this movie. I saw both the original Magnificent Seven and Seven Samuari when I was a kid but that was so long ago I don't remember much.

I was opposed to this movie on the sheer basis of it being another remake but, this worked. I really liked the characters and while they weren't all fleshed out, there was enough there to make me care. Surprisingly the ones I cared about the most weren't the Big 2. I really ended up loving Goodnight, Billy, Red Harvest and Jack Horne the most, with Vasquez coming a close second. 

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