The Magnificent Seven remake*

Watch the Kurosawa instead. Restore your faith in the power of cinema.

I'm sure there are thousands of talented filmmakers out there with creative and fresh ideas. The studios are in the business to make a profit, which trumps artistic expression in most cases. I'm still amazed at the hundreds of millions of dollars thrown at projects.

 

My wife and I went to see the Magnificent Seven (remake) today. I almost had to be talked into it, but figured I would just go, with modest expectations, and try not to condemn it before even seeing it. Westerns (though almost everything about them in old and modern cinema is based on fantasy), is one of my favorite genres.

I think it is an enjoyable movie. I prefer not to compare it to the classic it imitates, and therefore I like to call it a reinterpretation, not a remake. It is a Marvel Comics super hero type movie in a Western setting. The good guys/heroes are very hard to kill, and all the bullets fired from their pistols and rifles appear to have the benefits of laser guidance. The only one to run out of ammo is the woman on the good guys side; I'm glad the Seven never needed to reload their weapons during gunfights (I only remember one scene where one of them was grabbing bullets out of a cardboard box and then loading his weapon.)

Denzel is great, as always. He is economical in his killing and in his talking. And you better listen to him when he talks. I did like Chris Pratt in this movie -- kind of a lose canon who knew his way around a gunfight. I didn't know that a SPOILER COMING UP -- skip the rest of this paragraph) gattlin gun had a range of 400-500 yards, with incredible accuracy to boot.

I think it is appropriate to judge this movie on its own merits, and the scenery is great, and while the James Horner sountrack is serviceable, he has done better work (but won't be doing any more -- is this one of the last movies he scored before passing on 6/22/2015?). A good popcorn movie.

 

I've seen the trailer in the cinema now at least 6 times and all I get is a meh experience.

 

Picky note - need a capital letter there. The Gatling gun was invented by Richard Gatling and bears his name.

Gatling Guns: Service and Description, 1878 »

 

It's entertaining and it does try to revisit the themes from the previous two films and pull them into the film without duplicating some of the trappings of M7 and 7S.

I also really enjoyed that they threw in Elmer Bernstein's brilliant theme to close out the film.

We don't know how much Horner finished and what the other composer brought but there were some stirring moments during some sequences with the music.

 

I thought it was a good movie. it wasn't slavishly faithful to the M7 which is one of the reasons I think it works pretty well. The main flaw was that there wasn't as much character development as I would have liked but what we got was pretty good. Is it perfect? Nope but it is darn entertaining and just different enough so that the original does t spring to mind. Give it a chance.

 

The wife and I saw this last night. I had been preparing for a week to judge the movie on its own merit, since I am a big fan of Seven Samurai.

I think this is a very good movie, and has a great cast. Not a classic, but worth seeing.

We haven't seen the first Magnificent Seven, so I bought it at Best Buy for $8, and we plan to watch it tonight.

 

It's a bit slow by contemporary standards but that's they don't make epics where character development isn't sacrificed to action. Brilliant performances I love the stillness that James Coburn and the economy of movement that Brynner & McQueen bring to their roles.

 

I had to stop watching, it was boring the hell out of me. I probably need to wait longer before watching it so close to the new one.

 

So close to the new one "
Shouldn't it be the other way round ?

 

Well, as I said, it's an old fashioned epic western like Ride The Big Country, Etc. you can't judge it against current films. Different time, different type of character development, etc.

It's still an amazing film. It just takes much longer to assemble the 7.

 

It's a remake so it will be judged against the org. That's how it works with remakes imo. They could have just named it whatever and no remake and that's a different story then.

 

I was talking about the original M7 which is why I said "you can't judge it against current films".

 

It was entertaining and enjoyable. The only two complaints I had were the already mentioned Gatling gun and the horrible CGI shot of the tombstones at the end.

 

I’ll wait for the video, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it!

Right now on AMC, I am watching SILVERADO (1985), Description: Wild West Drifters arrive in a lawless town and team up to fight a corrupt sheriff and a powerful family.

Sound familiar???

 

Yes, it sounds like a lot of,other westerns out there!

 

Article in today's L.A. Times Calendar section in which Fuqua praises Seven Samurai. Not so sure it's a good idea for him to draw attention to the vastly superior original version.

 

Why? We saw the new one first.

 

Maybe they could have done something similar with Zombies. Oh, wait...

 

I had fun watching this as a popcorn flick. Not much in the way of character development, so it kinda plays like a cartoon.

 

Why? Hey he enjoyed it enough to recommend the film. Kudos for him.

 

And an updated but highly watchable newer Version of the seven Samurai theme is "13 Assassins" - Great movie !! And no idiotic Gatling Guns

 

Saw it Saturday and quite enjoyed it. I didn't think the Gatling gun was particularly accurate, just that when you're pumping hundreds of bullets in one direction, you're bound to hit something. Yes, the heroes were better shots than the bad guys, but that's movies for you. Really loved Chris Pratt's character, and Denzel was great as always. The Indian was a believable Comanche brave as well.

Yes, Seven Samurai is a better film, but what is? You're not going to get huge numbers of Americans out to a film with subtitles, so it's a moot point.

 

Gatling gun is pretty darn accurate!

 

I saw it Sunday and visually it is beautiful.

Little slow in the middle. I had trouble with Vincent Donofrio understanding what he was saying.

Overall it was a lot of fun to watch. Gatling gun scene I still don't understand. They should have started with it.