I didn’t even know this was in production.
Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Peter Sarsgaard, Chris Pratt, Byung-hyun Lee, Haley Bennett, Matt Bomer, and Vincent D’Onofrio.
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
September 23rd, 2016.
The best part of that production still is the D’Onofrio beard.
-Tom
And in a reversal of the remake idea, Unforgiven is going to be re-made into a samurai movie starring Ken Watanabe.
That happened three years ago. You can buy it on Amazon as an expensive import. Excellent swordfight at the end, but in general the American version is better.
This story is timeless, but despite being directly remade or forming the basis for several other looser adaptations several times, nothing comes remotely close to the quality of Seven Samurai, Kurosawa’s greatest movie.
Despite having access to a reasonable cast given the nature of the movie, Antoine Fuqua is a godawful director who we’ve sadly had to endure far beyond his expiration date because he once fluked out a movie that overrepresented his capabilities, Training Day. Despite producing some truly wretched movies, he chooses subject matter that is sufficiently alluring to ultimately be additionally punishing.
I looked at that cast, I looked at that screenshot, and I got excited.
Then I watched the trailer: this appears to be The Magnificent Seven through the eyes of a Baz Luhrmann/Michael Bay collaboration. It looks awful.
What an awful trailer.
The reviews so far have not been kind to this. According to much of the criticism, it’s bland, inconsequential, and a terrible re-imagining of the original. Oh well.
I love this line from the ScreenCrush review:
There is another addition: An ending in which Bennett’s character talks about the heroes who fought for her town in voiceover, while the camera pans across one of the most laughable CGI landscapes I’ve ever seen. “They were,” she says, before a big dramatic pause, “magnificent.” Yeah, no
I didn’t realize this was written by True Detective’s Nic Pizzolato. Not sure if that’s a positive or a negative given that show’s second season.
All in all, the reviews aren’t terrible, but they’re a pretty mild recommendation overall. The cast is terrific, but the trailers that are pre-rolling on Youtube have turned me right off. Probably better off just watching The Seven Samurai again.
Why?
That is my question.
If they called this “Generic Western Movie” I would say it was adequate but not good. Calling this “Magnificent Seven” caused me, throughout the movie, to be forcibly confronted by the realization that the people who made this have no idea what made the prior movie good.
Saw it yesterday. Wasn’t particularly worked up about its status as a remake, figured that’s what it takes to get a movie made this decade.
A decent western, script was alternately sharp and jarringly anachronistic. Even though there was a big cast, there were plenty of character-establishing moments to go around.
Some nice casting choices, also. Pratt worked his role to great effect, Dinofrio (sp, I know) was alternately haunting and endearing, Washington suppressed a lot of his usual acting tics.
Still bothered by the idea that one bullet or arrow is an insta-kill for most bad guys.
I haven’t seen it. Don’t know if I will.
I loved both Kurosawa’s epic and the US version. The latter has some of my favorite scenes ever, including the Steve McQueen/Yul Brynner Boot Hill burial scene, which is right up there with my all-time favorites. I’ve used both films in classes for a variety of purposes, and can watch them both over and over again.
I have no problem per se with the casting in this one, and in fact, it looks like a very strong cast. But I have to echo, why? Not one, but two fantastic versions of this tale exist. Did anyone seriously think a third would add much to the mix?
Those who have seen it: one of the big criticisms I’ve seen is that it pushes the “multicultural” make-up of the Seven heavily, but then the three “non-Denzel Washington” non-Caucasian characters have almost no dialogue and little screen time, and appear to be a pretty cynical addition to make the movie more palatable to a broader audience. Fair?
Yes and no. I mean, you can’t really come up with a more white people genre than westerns, and here they’ve got a black dude as the leader, but don’t make a big deal about it (in the movie at least) like they expect a medal or something. It just is.
On the other hand, the other three non white folks are definitely three of the four least used main characters. The cherokee in particular (sorry I can’t remember any of the character names) seemed like he was just there because they had another native american as one of the top evil lieutenants.
“Where ya from?”
Brenner points backward, behind him
“Where ya going?”
Brenner points in front of him
Anything as clever as this in the new movie?
Not that I can remember, and I saw it a few hours ago.
The one touch I liked was taking Vin’s original “So far, so good” one-off and making it into a recurring line—to nice effect—for Chris Pratt’s Faraday.
The original was much better made, and had immeasurably more style.
Saw it thus night. Amazing.
Not a Denzel fan. But still a great western.