Review of The Magnificent Seven 2016 Full Movie

Review of The Magnificent Seven 2016 Full Movie: This modern version of The Magnificent Seven tries to merge the original Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai into one story. My lack of familiarity and history with those films makes me feel slightly less guilty about the fact that I like this version of the story best of all. For one thing, this film did a superb job of setting up all 7 of the main characters. I felt like I got to know every single one of them and understood their motivations and strengths. 

The humor didn't work all that well for me, which surprises me because I find Chris Pratt so funny, but at least it wasn't so bad I was cringing. The cast of actors is top-notch and each of them delivered something special. There might have been a couple that I wished were featured more prominently, because their characters worked so well for me but I understand there was only so much screentime to go around. The entire third act is an elaborate fight scene that was captured extremely well. 

I always felt like I knew what was going on, where people were, and what they were trying to do, which is quite difficult in films with this many characters. Easily the biggest shortcoming of the film was the conclusion. If done right it could have been emotionally devastating, but they didn't pull that off so I left the theater with dry eyes. However, I also left the theater with a smile on my face because this Magnificent Seven made for a fun two hours of the movies.

Antoine Fuqua is teaming up with Denzel Washington again. This time for a remake in the western genre. I loved the 90s TV series based on the original 1960 movie. I love Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, and in fact, IMDb says this version is based on that screenplay written by Kurosawa and a couple other writing partners. This adaptation makes a concerted effort to be more diverse and the seven leading men are definitely each distinct. Here we have the leader being a man in black who is mourning his dead family. That is common to each version of this story. Next, we have a charming, trickster, card-shark, an alcoholic sharp-shooter, and a spiritual man who has lost his central purpose. Three more men give this set of seven wider diversity. There is a South Korean, a Mexican, and a Native American. There is also a token female who hires the man in black and can handle a rifle on her own since her daddy gave her some wilderness survival training. What can I say? I like the set up of this story even though it has been done many times. They found a way to vary it just enough and it is incredibly exciting.

Once upon a time, there was this bloody western titled The Magnificent Seven", released in 1960 and directed by legendary Sergio Leone, which is still considered one of the best movies western genre, it not of all time. It won't probably hit you that hard if you tried to watch now for the first time, what with it being almost 60 years old and all. So you might as well settle for this remake. This is one of those remakes nobody asked for, but you know it's gonna be somewhat special if it's led by Denzel Washington, one of the greatest movie stars of our time, a man with not often rivaled charisma and onscreen presence.

It's about seven gunmen protecting a town from ruthless robber baron, simple as that. The story or screenplay is nothing special nor especially deep, but they don't even have to be, because the cast is cool and most of the time is dedicated to blasting off those guns. The direction is competent, able to use the best of western cliches and build constant suspense; the dialogue is adequate; the acting is good enough but there's no point of writing about all that extensively. First and foremost, this is about shooting people or preparing to do it, for 132 minutes. Although the story is shallow, there is some hidden symbolism which may offer some delight for Jung fans.

The seven heroes are played by Byung-hun Lee, Chris Pratt, Denzel Washington, Ethan Hawke, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, and Vincent D'Onofrio. The robber baron is Peter Sarsgaard. Also appearing, Luke Grimes, Haley Bennett, et al. Most of the cast plays it straight but some (Hawke, D'Onofrio, Sarsgaard) add a little mental instability to their performances, which brings a welcome variety. For a movie directed by Antoine Fuqua, The Magnificent Seven" is unusually modest and low-key - if you can call a story of the massacre that. It never tries to get glamorous and impress us with visual inventiveness, the latter is mostly reserved for shootouts so we wouldn't have to watch men dying in the same way over and over again.

Then again, the world looks remarkably simple and unglamorous as the true wild west may have been, Washington, for example, hasn't looked that ordinary on screen for a long time. So, this is a simple story well told. Fine entertainment for action lovers, or those who want to see classic western redone with modern tools and resources. What impressed me the most about this movie is the fact that it didn't try and overextend its potential; it had a whole bunch of amazing actors in it, and it still played it safe to deliver a very enjoyable western film. This movie delivered exactly what you'd expect from it - big budget actors delivering an exhilarating, exciting western film with some good action and an overall enjoyable time.

This movie gives you all that, with a little more. Besides the acting from guys like Denzel Washington (Chisolm), Chris Pratt (Josh Faraday), Ethan Hawke (Goodnight Robicheaux), and more, the action and gunslinger scenes were done really well and captured the vibes of a classic western movie beautifully. I was genuinely intrigued by those action scenes, and never found myself getting bored. The plot was very simple, basically to the point where it could be considered cliche: town in danger, group of men try to defend it to take it back from another evil man, it seems like a recycled story, but the movie that surrounds that plot was good enough to distract you from its simplicity. Even if you're not into western style movies, I would still recommend this movie to someone who enjoys feel-good action movies, as the dialogue was filled with witty humor, and delivered by some of the top actors in Hollywood right now. This movie did not disappoint one bit, and I will say that "The Magnificent Seven" is definitely worth the watch.