Ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would. I feel like Denzel needed more screen time, but he does have quite a presence and many great scenes. Chris Pratt kills it as well. I'm not sure what accent Vincent D'Onofrio was doing, but he was great too.

B+

Antoine Fuqua's remake does nothing innovative whatsoever, but it's an old-fashioned, consistently entertaining shoot em 'up western. Denzel Washington gives a fairly subdued performance that nonetheless lends the film an aura of dignity. The standout of the cast, of course, is Chris Pratt in yet another performance dripping with unforced charisma. One thing: I am somewhat amazed this got a PG-13 rating. There's very little gore to speak of, but it's extremely violent nonetheless. B

After they are brutalized and evicted by a capitalist in pursuit of gold (Peter Sarsgaard, petulantly mustache-twirling), the citizens of a California town enlist an itinerant lawman (Denzel Washington) and six other violent men to retaliate in this update of the iconic sixties Western The Magnificent Seven, itself an American answer to Akira Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Other than perhaps in its casting, which diversifies the seven to include, among others, Americans of African and Korean descent, the film does not particularly experiment with or invert its genre, but it is a highly entertaining and robust gallery of Western images and traditions, which is itself a type of novelty in the 21st century. For director Antoine Fuqua, it is his most confident and satisfying film since Training Day fifteen years ago, though the competition, including Shooter and Olympus Has Fallen, is far from rigorous. But he does what he must well, including conjuring picturesque Old-West tableaux (horses traversing vast and dusty fields, small-town thoroughfares crowded with preachers and prostitutes and tradesmen) and staging crisp and coherent combat sequences. And he assembled a fine ensemble cast. I suspect Washington could play this note of stoic heroism while asleep at this point, but he is still a sound and charismatic leading man. Washington and the director's fellow Training Day alumnus Ethan Hawke enjoys the most substantial dramatic character arc—he plays a once legendary Confederate sharpshooter who is now traumatized and reluctant to fight—while a burly Vincent D'Onofrio delivers a nicely absurd, scene-stealing performance as an Indian-hunting mountain man left half mad by so many years alone in the wild. And there is Chris Pratt in the general-though-not-precise equivalent of the role previously played by Steve McQueen near the start of his storied career. This film clearly recognizes its post-Guardians of the Galaxy/Jurassic World casting coup and frequently cedes moments and scenes to Pratt, who performs with his usual fusion of squinting sarcasm and matinee-idol sincerity. His is a familiar, but still winning contribution.

B+

It doesn't bring anything new to the genre, but this was a really solid western. Denzel plays the stoic badass very well here and I'm glad they didn't completely make it his movie. Pratt and D'Onofrio were good too, but surprisingly enough I found the most interesting characters to be Hawke/Lee. I don't know why, but their dynamic was really compelling and I honestly wouldn't mind spin-off movie about the backstory of those two.

The action sequences are pretty exciting and satisfyingly violent for a PG-13 film. I wish they did more with Peter Sarsgaard as the villain, but I guess he served his purpose as the standard, mustache twirling bad guy.

A lot of people get shot. Not much else happens.

So rather than having the altruistic motives of a hero, Denzel gets all those people killed for a personal vendetta? Is that why they were so obsessed with filming his knees? Or how he would randomly turn into a Tarantino character at certain points.

The Magnificent Seven

It's a mixed bag. When it's good, it's pretty good. But when it's bad, it's kind of unspectacular (yawn-worthy). Fuqua certainly knows how to film a shootout, and how to conjure intensity within a standoff or buildup. But unfortunately the project has a tendency to often feel like a generic western. While four of the major players die (Pratt, Hawke, Lee, D'Onofrio), which is against form for ensemble action films (I'm looking at you, Expendables!), the film's titular troop falls firmly within the drawbacks of the genre; it doesn't avoid the Expendables mistake (i.e. seven stars versus just one). Not all of the performances work either. While Hawke, Lee, D'Onofrio and the Indian get a pass for creating characters with a personality, Pratt and Denzel do nothing. Pratt's Quinn-schtick is no longer charming, more grating, and Denzel is too preoccupied with what he thinks is an important shout out to the black community by having a black leader to a non-black group. The jokes are hit and miss. The music is compelling in the bloated action set pieces. By the end, it is a satisfying watch, but also disappointing considering what could have been. And it's too long.

C+

Just started this and Jesus Christ it's boring.

**1/2 / ***** (C-)

There's not one thing you can point here and say it's bad. It's the prime example of mediocrity in movie making in every single aspect.

Yeah, I didn't finish it. The Lone Ranger is better than this.

I wish I pressed stop the moment Denzel was riding out of the town after the final battle. The CGI town, grass and graves at the end were a rather strange way to end the movie that had more than decent cinematography.

The Magnificent Seven was a big fat tud. It was deadly serious, but never in an exciting, interesting way. It felt completely lifeless and I was bored through most of it. Not even the final shoot-out was anything note-worthy. They should have packed a little more fun into it, wouldn't have hurt.

A very bland attempt at a Western. Not much to add I guess, I probably enjoyed the credit roll at the end with the music the most. Fawn at Haley Bennett.

C

Pratt definitely tried, but not once did I actually laugh and it was more of the eye-roll kind.

By which you mean Richard Wenk tried.

And I disagree with you and Riggs. Packing fun into it would have hurt a lot. It not being fun wasn't the film's problem.

Generic westerner with a decent final act. The performances are decent but nothing out of the convention we have seen many times in Western movies. The movie is too long and the only scene that I really liked outside of the ending was the Church burning. The communication between the group just didn't ring true and I never felt that these group of people were working for each other even when they are laughing and dancing.

5/10