This movie is a remake of a western that was a remake of a Japanese movie. So one can expect a lack of originality and, let's face it, this movie gives you a Deja Vu feeling that remains with you when you leave the theater. As you can see, the plot is pretty standard for the genre and its development doesn't bring any particular new element.
During the movie I found myself appreciating this aspect. I lived classic western scenes as a citation, even as an homage to the genre. The piano player that stops playing when the badass character enters the saloon while everyone turns to look at him. The excellent crescendo during the staredowns on dusty roads. The music that embraces the plot till the final explosion of notes. All of this is done and presented with great skill, making the movie a very nice work to look at. The problem is that there is nothing new to support the homage, no contribution is coming from the movie. It thus looks very unoriginal to everyone that ever saw a western movie.
A bright spot is the overall performance of the actors, yet bugged with its highs and lows. Denzel is excellent, this is the kind of role that probably most suits him and the alchemy with the director (Antoine Fuqua) is strong for the entire movie. Chris Pratt and Ethan Hawke bring to the screen a convincing performance, the one that I have appreciated the most since they convey some sort of journey for the respective characters. On the other hand, the performance of Vincent D'Onofrio, an actor that I liked a lot every time I've seen him (Full Metal Jacket and Daredevil), sounds off and underwhelming. But it can just be me feeling strange while I laugh every time he speaks or moves.
Another bad performance, but I suspect the reason is how the character is written, is coming for the bad guy. It is not a case that I refer to the antagonist as "the capitalism" or "the bad guy". While can be easy to find the actor's name online, I want to stress out that, in a movie with 7 important good guys, the bad guy should pop out of the screen and it simply doesn't happen, leaving the antagonist in an annoying shade of anonymity. The antagonist is one dimensional, he has a very little screen time and does nothing to be remembered.
This was probably the biggest disappointment since the rest of the characters is introduced very efficiently (with a few minor exceptions). We spend the first 30 minutes to meet our heroes, seeing them doing something that immediately gives us a reason to care or be curious about them. This is an aspect that I have appreciated since the last movie that I saw with multiple protagonists (Suicide Squad, reviewed here) was a mess in the introduction. If there we spent the first part of the movie by listening to someone telling us about the characters, in The Magnificent Seven they appear naturally one by one, saving us from what I can call the audiobook-effect. In other words, this movie succeeds where Suicide Squad failed: it goes beyond its trailer.
The action sequences are the other strong suit of the movie. The tension is slowly built up with excellent camera movements and small dialogues. Then the scene explodes with its choreography of smoking guns, flying knives, arrows, and dead bodies piling up. For being only a PG-13 movie, its violence is a very dominant factor, so expect a lot of very well written and directed action sequences with a lot of people dying on screen.
In conclusion, if you never saw a western movie, this is a fair sample of how it would look like and you will probably enjoy the action sequences and the badassery of the protagonists. Otherwise, everything will look familiar and there is the chance to be disappointed by the lack of originality of this movie.
At last, that preacher is a motherfucker.
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