Thefanboyseo.com reviews The Magnificent Seven starring Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Byung-Hun Lee and more. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and distributed by United International Pictures and Columbia Pictures Philippines.

Why do I have the feeling that this is just Antoine Fuqua’s answer to Quintin Tarantino’s Django Unchained. But I’m probably just getting ahead of myself and also its unfair to do that. But still I’ll get to that later.

This is a remake of a Western remake of a Japanese samurai movie. If you’re too young to know, The Magnificent Seven was original done in the 60s and starred a who’s who of Hollywood at the time. The original #Mag7 featured guys like Charles Bronson, Steve McQueen and Yul Brynner (yes, the King of Siam in “King and I”).

I liked this movie but there’s a part of me that says that it could have been better. The source material might make for constraints but I’m sure there’s oodles of creativity from the production team. There’s also the plot holes, like how it “felt” like the entire town helped out in the fight against Bogues but that wasn’t the case when Chisolm and the rest of the seven gun men arrived.

Diversity for the Sake of Diversity

I liked the movie for diversity, but it really did feel like they ran with the “diversity for the sake of diversity”. I mean in almost half of the team is composed of POCs. But this is the Wild West we’re talking about. It’s INTOLERANT AMERICA for chrissakes. They don’t do well with non-whites in the fringes of society so we’re to believe that there are seven deadly gunmen riding around doing god knows what. Good job with that. Hey, even the Native American comanche character had his moment.

Beautiful Death

The 2016 version shares the grisly fate for most of the members of this western squad as its predecesor. While we don’t know exactly who bites the bullet by the end of the movie based on the trailer alone, we definitely know that there would be casualties. This is where the 2016 version is raised to the next level. It made sense, its better done and its better scripted.

Marlboro Men

So while diversity raises a half flag for me. I’m giving a thumbs up to the insane talent they got for the film. I don’t even have to mention Denzel Washington as Sam Chisolm, we know that when working with director Fuqua, you can expect amazing things. Chris Pratt was exceptional, Ethan Hawke as Goodnight Robicheaux was either lazy acting or its damn good that it looked natural. But for me, the real star here was Vincent D’Onofrio who plays Jack Horn. He did an exemplary job being this good natured tracker who can go beast mode on your sorry ass with just a snap of a finger. It’s characters like this that would have really made Magnificent Seven a great film.

VERDICT

8/10

We haven’t had a good Western for quite some time so it is your obligation as an action movie fan to catch Magnificent Seven as it hits theaters. If you’re a big Western genre nut, then this will be a good fix as well as certain cinematography and scenery will definitely remind you of the heydays when Ennio Morricone tracks were all the rage in cinemas.

Special thanks to United International Pictures and Columbia Pictures Philippines