The Magnificent Seven★★★
Rifles-a-blazin'
Accurately diverse cast
Lack of backstory
Seven gun men in the old west gradually come together to help a poor village against savage thieves.
I've never seen the original The Magnificent Seven—nor Seven Samurai—but I was excited about this movie, regardless, from the first trailer. I mean, that cast!
However, though the cast was great, and the movie itself decently entertaining, I didn't love it as much as I had hoped.
My main dislike stems from the fact that there wasn't a whole lot of backstory explaining the characters' actions or the larger plot of the movie. I mean, I could make inferences in many cases, and my imagination filled in many of the holes from the little information we did get, but I never really connected with any of the characters or their motivations. And in some cases, the backstory came too late to make much of a difference.
That said, I thought the cast—specifically the diversity of the cast—was great. Denzel Washington's Sam Chisolm is a great, soft-spoken leader; Chris Pratt's Josh Faraday is a delightfully snarky ne'er-do-well (think Peter Quill in the old west); Vincent D'Onofrio's Jack Horne is crazy personified (with a seriously bizarre way of speaking); and Peter Sarsgaard's Bartholomew Bogue was thisclose to being a joke, but his quiet demeanor made his over-the-top villainy that much more real. The supporting cast were great at their roles, too, and let's just say that Martin Sensmeier's Red Harvest wasn't hard on the ol' eyes.
According to Colt, it was a really good example of a "standard" western film, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm not well-versed in the genre, so take all this with a grain of salt. I don't feel like I needed to see this one in theaters, but don't feel like it was a waste to have done so either.
Check it out:
No comments
Leave a comment?