The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
Looking to mine for gold, greedy industrialist Bartholomew Bogue seizes control of the Old West town of Rose Creek. With their lives in jeopardy, Emma Cullen and other desperate residents turn to bounty hunter Sam Chisolm for help. Chisolm recruits an eclectic group of gunslingers to take on Bogue and his ruthless henchmen. With a deadly showdown on the horizon, the seven mercenaries soon find themselves fighting for more than just money once the bullets start to fly.
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What critics say influenced The Magnificent Seven
Become a fan on Facebook Follow on Twitter Review by Mark Dujsik | September 22, 2016 The distinct rhythm of Elmer Bernstein's timeless theme to 1960's The Magnificent Seven can be heard amidst the score of this new iteration of the story.
Overall, “The Magnificent Seven” is a worthy tribute to the original 1960 classic, and it’s a great ride for fans of action or westerns.
That's because the plot of The Magnificent Seven already powered a previous Western starring Yul Brenner, Eli Wallach and Steve McQueen that hit in 1960, and that movie additionally was lifted from Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai released in 1954.
It's called The Magnificent Seven, which marks it as a remake of a remake - the 1960 original Western lifted its plot from the 1954 Akira Kurosawa film Seven Samurai.
John Sturges, director of 1960's The Magnificent Seven , also made – deep breath – Bad Day at Black Rock , Gunfight at the OK Corral , The Great Escape and Ice Station Zebra among other classics.
Meanwhile, Fuqua pays visual tribute to classic Westerns such as The Searchers and The Wild Bunch, but renders the callbacks meaningless by providing no context for them.
Duly recruited by the newly widowed Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett, all grim determination and cleavage), the avenging septet arrives, trains the locals and gets ready for a showdown, which borrows a few moves from another classic western, The Wild Bunch, along the way.
Later, they evolved into the Clint Eastwood Man with No Name films and more violent affairs like Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch.
In spirit, the truest remake of Kurosawa’s film was not Hollywood’s cornball “oater” version of The Magnificent Seven but Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch (1969), which confronted America’s new, post-assassinations, Vietnam-conscious era of violence.
The improv mayhem of Saving Private Ryan ’s final battle is a clear touchpoint, as is The Wild Bunch ’s famous climax, but with a 12A rating in mind, it’s an oddly bloodless swirl of bullets even as the bodies pile up.
Aside from the original M7, there are shout-outs to Shane, Hang 'Em High, The Wild Bunch and, most curiously, Blazing Saddles.
(Harvey Korman was much funnier in the same role in Blazing Saddles.)
Early on, when he raises eyebrows by presenting himself in an all-white saloon as a “duly sworn warrant officer,” it’s hard not to hear echoes of Cleavon Little in Blazing Saddles and Eddie Murphy in 48 Hours.
It’s Cleavon Little’s mosey into Rock Ridge in Blazing Saddles, only told with a straight face and with some horrendously clichéd saloon dialogue.
Having the most fun is Vincent D’Onofrio, whose savage yet rolly-polly tracker offers the exact midway point between Blazing Saddles ’ Mongo and the bear from The Revenant .
Aside from the original M7, there are shout-outs to Shane, Hang 'Em High, The Wild Bunch and, most curiously, Blazing Saddles.
Even the basic premise behind “The Magnificent Seven” of a town led by heroes defending itself from a ruthless villain has been used so much it has been parodied on multiple occasions (think “Blazing Saddles” and “The Three Amigos”).
It’s fun in the sense that you can reward yourself for spotting the references (Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter are given visual nods, while the raw style of Sergio Leone also looms large at several points).
This is not a new idea—it was the core of Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider (1985), for instance—but it gives the formula a more modern feel that makes it even easier to identify with the victims.
On the whole, the film, adapted by Nic Pizzolatto (“True Detective”) and Richard Wenk (“The Equalizer”), resembles Clint Eastwood’s 1985 masterpiece “Pale Rider” as much as John Sturges’ 1960 film.
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His name recalls the hero of “Chisum,” a John Wayne picture from 1970, and, in terms of fashion sense, Chisolm goes for the all-black look, as modelled by Hopalong Cassidy.
He’s our John Wayne, and if The Magnificent Seven isn’t quite The Searchers or True Grit , well, it’s at least The Cowboys or Chisum .
It’s fun in the sense that you can reward yourself for spotting the references (Clint Eastwood’s Pale Rider and High Plains Drifter are given visual nods, while the raw style of Sergio Leone also looms large at several points).
Meanwhile, Fuqua pays visual tribute to classic Westerns such as The Searchers and The Wild Bunch, but renders the callbacks meaningless by providing no context for them.
He’s our John Wayne, and if The Magnificent Seven isn’t quite The Searchers or True Grit , well, it’s at least The Cowboys or Chisum .
The film is less a callback to an olden age of Westerns as it a game of dress up, on a straight-from-central-casting set that feels more Back to the Future III than The Searchers.
With a vibe that evokes “Young Guns” over “Seven Samurai,” this 2016 version is directed by gifted filmmaker Antoine Fuqua, a genre director fully capable of making tolerable completely derivative material.
Antoine Fuqua’s “The Magnificent Seven” is an interesting case in that it’s technically a remake of a remake, based on the 1960 John Sturges film of the same name, which was itself inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai.”
While “elegant” might not be the first word used to describe John Sturges’ classic western “The Magnificent Seven,” it’s certainly an adjective that seems like a worthy descriptor, especially when watching Antoine Fuqua’s contemporary take on the tale that started with Akira Kurosawa’s peerless “Seven Samurai.”
But this remake of a 1960 film — which was itself inspired by the Japanese classic “Seven Samurai” (1954) — lacks the spirit that made the genre so popular for so long.
Here’s an idea: Take inspiration from the actual original Magnificent Seven — 1954’s Seven Samurai — and do a remake set in the not-so-old West of 1940s Japanese internment camps, in which patriotic Japanese-Americans fight back against being treated like traitors and criminals, and suddenly a shameful era in American history that no one wants to talk about gets epic kickass big-screen exposure.
Hollywood’s originality crisis continues with “The Magnificent Seven,” an echo of John Sturges’ 1960 remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 “Seven Samurai.”
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The lead-up and eventual battle is reminiscent not of any Westerns, but rather the last act of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998), in which a small group of American soldiers attempt to defend a bridge against an oncoming group of German soldiers and tanks.
The improv mayhem of Saving Private Ryan ’s final battle is a clear touchpoint, as is The Wild Bunch ’s famous climax, but with a 12A rating in mind, it’s an oddly bloodless swirl of bullets even as the bodies pile up.
But it's better than "Return of the Seven" (1966) and lies somewhere between "Guns of the Magnificent Seven" (1969) and "The Magnificent Seven Ride!" (1972).