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Review: The Magnificent Seven (2016)

The Magnificent Seven 2016
The Magnificent Seven had its worldwide premiere last week. I went to see it to find out how it stacks up with the film that inspired it, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, and what its relationship is to John Sturges’s original The Magnificent Seven from 1960. Here is my review.

First things first: the new Magnificent Seven is not a direct remake of either of the two films mentioned above. The basic structure is naturally the same — a town needs help, seven heroes are gathered to help it, defences are built, a battle is fought — but beyond that the smaller details follow neither Kurosawa’s film nor Sturges’s western adaptation of it. Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven wants to stand on its own.

This is certainly a good thing. Beyond the surface, these films have always had something contemporary to say, encouraging an update on the formula. Seven Samurai reflects on post-WW2 Japan and its large scale societal changes. The original The Magnificent Seven can be interpreted as a commentary on the directions of US foreign policy following the Korean War. The new The Magnificent Seven likewise appears to attach itself onto a contemporary socio-political issue, that of social and economic inequality and how they effect democracy.

Unfortunately, the screenplay never manages to fulfil this hint of a promise. And even more disappointingly, this is just one example of a wider, indeed rather fundamental flaw with the film. The Magnificent Seven is full of ideas that would sound good on paper or in a production meeting, but remain either entirely undeveloped or poorly executed on screen.

This is a pity because there should certainly be an interesting film in there somewhere. We all know that the base material is strong enough, there are plenty of good ideas that the filmmakers have thrown in, and it seems evident that the talented cast would be up for the task of delivering a modern classic. But the story remains strangely undercooked despite the numerous rewrites that it went through, the dialogue alternates between clichéd and laughable, and Fuqua’s work from the director’s chair is surprisingly toothless and unable to makie use of even the rare opportunities that the screenplay would offer him. On top of that, the editing is likewise particularly pedestrian, at times even haphazard, and as a result the film lacks the sense of place and character that both of its predecessors, and Kurosawa’s original in particular, so well embody.

Kurosawa once wrote that “with a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece; with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film.” In many ways, The Magnificent Seven is a wonderful example of this truth. But there seems to be more to it here.

If there is an exception to Kurosawa’s rule of screenplays, it may be found in films that are visually heavily stylised, the kind that don’t really worry about narrative structures or polished dialogue and are more focused on delivering an onslaught of memorable cinematic moments. From modern filmmakers, the works of Zack Snyder are particularly representative examples of this. Like The Magnificent Seven, Snyder’s films tend to consist of a series of clichés while lacking any real depth beyond some kind of an overall statement of intent. These films have little to say, but much to show you. They may not be particularly memorable works, yet there is a certain perverse attraction to watching their moments of overblown and over-stylised cinematic moments. Superman as the Christ figure, Vietnam as experienced through the eyes of The Comedian, or, of course, Gerard Butler growling “This is Sparta!”. While watching The Magnificent Seven, one occasionally wonders if it wasn’t at some point meant to be something like this, or at least towards that direction. There certainly are plenty of potential moments in The Magnificent Seven for that type of visual gluttony, and as a genre the western is particularly suited for it.

But Fuqua is no Snyder, or at least he seems to have no intention of going down that route, even if it might be the only way to save the screenplay. The Magnificent Seven lacks style and rhythm just like it lacks weight. Frankly, it feels like someone telling you about an action film that you would actually want to watch. Everything about it sounds interesting, but only because it is a list of interesting things. It is not cinema.

It is therefore a testimony to their talents that despite the screenplay and director so actively working against them, the cast — and Denzel Washinton, Ethan Hawke and Vincent D’Onofrio in particular — still manage to give fairly memorable performances.

But this is nowhere near enough to save the film. So, both thumbs down from me for The Magnificent Seven, a film that I was cautiously optimistic about when stepping into the cinema. Ever the optimist, I should perhaps have known better.

I will nonetheless finish this review on a more positive note and offer a film recommendation. The second film in my double bill for the day happened to be Clint Eastwood’s Sully, and as it happens it turned out to be far closer to Kurosawa’s filmmaking than The Magnificent Seven. I wouldn’t call Sully a modern classic, but it is a well-crafted and altogether pleasant feel-good film that, like most of Kurosawa’s films, features a determined if sometimes self-questioning main character, narrates a story that is focused on processes and their outcomes and in doing so concentrates on the “how” rather than the “why”, and which ultimately reflects the core question of Kurosawa’s cinema: how we as humans can be happy together. As a bonus, it stars Tom Hanks, who surely is Hollywood’s equivalent of Takashi Shimura.

So, go see Sully and forget about The Magnificent Seven. Unless, of course, you want to see the western purely for its Kurosawa connection.


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Ugetsu

Well, thats a pity! I’ve been super busy lately so despite really looking forward to seeing it, I managed not to catch it on its relatively brief run here. Most of the reviews seem lukewarm so I guess that sucked out some of the enthusiasm I felt for it. Unfortunately I guess I was right to suspect that the director didn’t have the imagination to make something new out of the basic story. I’ll try to catch it on dvd/streaming when I have the chance.

Interestingly though, when I finally got to the cinema this week I caught a film which would count as a Seven Samurai remake if it wasn’t based very closely on a true story. Its a netflix original film, given a brief cinema release here in Ireland, called The Siege of Jadotville. It will be on netflix next week.

The parallels with Seven Samurai are striking. The Siege occurred in the Congo in 1961 when a small unit of Irish UN soldiers, for reasons lost in the mists of geopolitics, found themselves under severe attack from a mix of local tribespeople and French/Belgian mercenaries without any help from the rest of the UN forces. The entire incident was considered an embarrassment for all the authorities so was quietly hushed up, and has been something of a cause celebre for the soldiers and their families, in particular the failure to acknowledge the incredible military skill of their leader, Pat Quinlan, who organised an tactical defence which held off a heavily armed force at least 20 times greater than his for 6 days, without losing a single soldier. Jamie Dornan plays him very much as a Kambei type figure, trying to use a deep understanding of defence tactics to defeat a much larger invading force. The film doesn’t have any references or direct nods to Seven Samurai that I could catch, but the scenes setting out the geography of the battle and the specific tactics did closely mirror the mid part of SS, so I suspect the film makers did at least examine some of Kurosawa’s structure and technique.

The film is by no means perfect. The script is horribly clunky in parts. They obviously tried to explain the geopolitics of what went on at the time, but that period is so complex and opaque that I think it would defeat a Graham Greene or Le Carre to incorporate it into a film script. The result is a lot of slightly bemused looking actors in period clothing mouthing bits of history lessons, or ambiguous scenes showing famous incidents such as the might be, might not have been, assassination of Dag Hammerskjold. The first time director is great at the action scenes, which are superbly done, but much less confident with the domestic and political background. I did note with approval, with my military history nerd hat on, that the battle and military scenes are very close to what must have been the reality on the ground – another thing it shared with Kurosawas film.

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lawless

I’d been looking forward to a more inclusive M7, so this is disappointing. I may still see it. I may not.

Although I am not interested in seeing Sully, I concur with your assessment of Eastwood as a filmmaker. Irrespective of what one might think about his political opinions, they don’t seem to adversely affect his art. Every movie of his I’ve seen (Unforgiven, Changeling, Gran Torino) has been well-crafted, nuanced, and well-told. Unforgiven in particular is a modern classic.

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Vili Maunula

Ugetsu: The Siege of Jadotville sounds very interesting! I’ll keep an eye on it on my Netflix account.

Lawless: The new Magnificent Seven certainly tries to be more inclusive than the previous attempt. The seven now include an Asian, a Mexican and a Native American, and the remaining four characters are all varied, if archetypal western characters: a warrant officer, a Confederate soldier, a gambler and a hunter from the mountains. Too bad none of these characters are fleshed out in any great detail. Also, none of them are very likeable. Denzel Washinton’s version of Kambei for instance is something of a (periodically accurate?) male chauvinist who isn’t there to help but to seek revenge, and who it turns out is also a little off his head. He isn’t the only one, as I count at least three characters who clearly have mental problems.

There are still no women among the seven, but it is the film’s sole major female character that actually takes an active leadership over the town and hires the gunslingers. She is also the only character that has any sort of a character arc to speak of. It is a small arc though. And she does need to be rescued at one point. Of course.

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Greasy Rat

I was disappointed because it had so much potential. There was so much there and it just left me feeling empty. Honestly, I could get more out of fanfiction than I could out of this thing.

Some moments stood out for me, though. Bogue and his jar of dirt; Chisolm coming out of the haze as though he were in the beginning of High Plains Drifter; Lee Byung-hun speaking English; Chris Pratt being his usual charismatic self; Vincent D’Onofrio playing the best role that Andy Devine never had; And the pretty scenery.

The plot was familiar, though for better or for worse, it wasn’t a straightforward adaptation like the 1960 film was.

There were so many issues they could have properly addressed. There was empty space where there should have been conflict.

Other than that, it was dull, soulless and the characters were paper thin. Also, Bogue stole a line from Calvera, the fiend!

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lawless

Vili:

There are still no women among the seven, but it is the film’s sole major female character that actually takes an active leadership over the town and hires the gunslingers.

Shino’s presence and the flipping of gender stereotypes vis-s-vis her and Kautsushiro is one of the delights of the original for me. Maybe that influenced Fuqua, although in the original no woman is shown wanting to be rescued or needing rescue, or is found too late to matter (the Old Man’s daughter-in-law).

How I feel would depend on how and why the rescue happens, but the reactions to the movie overall are discouraging enough that I almost certainly won’t make the time to see it. I’m still kicking myself for seeing Carol instead of Creed, and there were a lot of positive things to say about Carol. (I later saw Creed on DVD.)

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ssj

disappointing to hear about this. you’d figure that after almost 2/3 of a century following the release of the source material, anybody looking to adapt the original story and take it in a new direction would have taken time and care to explore some interesting possibilities, aside from the purely visual.

still, i might see it anyway for the kurosawa connection and also for lee byung hun, who did a tremendous job in a bittersweet life.

a somewhat tangential musing:
as many (including kurosawa) have adapted shakespeare over the centuries and will continue to do so as long as human civilization holds up, perhaps many future artists will similarly adapt kurosawa. can you imagine kurosawa’s cinematic descendants thousands of years from now? me, neither. . . but i wish i could find out.

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Yingzhe

Vili

Denzel Washinton’s version of Kambei for instance is something of a (periodically accurate?) male chauvinist who isn’t there to help but to seek revenge, and who it turns out is also a little off his head.

That sounds hugely disappointing! Kanbei as a revenge-seeking lunatic? Very tragic.

Generally, I had low expectations for this film and wasn’t planning on seeing it, despite the pleasing additional inclusivity. This review has convinced me that I am making the correct decision in not seeing it, or at the very least not seeing it in theatre.

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lawless

Here’s another blogger’s take on the movie. She didn’t like it much either, finding the characterization shallow, but Emma Cullen made up for more of it for her.

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Ugetsu

Just a quickie to say that The Siege of Jadotville is on Netflix now (in my region anyway).

For film trivia nuts, the opening pub scene was shot in a pub I know well – in a village called, believe it or not, Hollywood. Its a tiny village which is frequently used as a film set, no doubt its name is one reason (and the presence of two lovely old pubs, and little else).

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sleiman

I have to admit to have absolutely no interest or desire to watch this movie.

In my view, the original Kurosawa film is the standard. The original American remake is good but after that, where can you go? If another remake is going to be better than the original American one, great. But I would find it hard to believe it could top Seven Samurai and so from that perspective, it has no option but to disappoint.

Which is not to say that it would be a ‘bad’ film but as they say, it’s no fun going back to economy once you’ve flown first class.

Kurosawa has spoilt us. But I don’t think that is a bad thing….

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yjmbobllns

Finally got around to watching M7 2016 this week and I was so bored. Every decision seemed to be to make the film as generic as possible, from the writing, the look and particularly the music. My wife and I did have a conversation discussing how they could’ve made a watchable movie ripping of the Kurosawa source material, so that was nice. Reading through all of your comments was enjoyable as well. Vili, I had a similar thought to your Snyder comments, on how at least Fuqua should’ve had the decency to go for an extreme look or soundtrack in some way to at least make the film memorable.

The following evening we watched HELL OR HIGH WATER, which really has no relation to Kurosawa, but it was a nice alternative modern western that made up for the sour taste left by M7. It’s very well made and acted, unique in all the ways M7 was not, and has some great long takes that would’ve made the Master proud.

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Vili Maunula

Ugetsu mentioned The Siege of Jadotville above, and I finally got around to watching it on Netflix the other day. It certainly has some echoes of Seven Samurai and was a pleasant enough diversion from the cramped airline seat on which I was sitting while watching the film.

However, I very much agree with Ugetsu that while the battle scenes are well handled, the larger picture is not very well presented at all. As someone who had never heard of the historical incident before, the film didn’t really tell me enough to make me understand why the geopolitical stakes were supposedly so high. As a result, the film came across as very hollow, even if it clearly could have had much to say about something. Which is a pity, as the battlefield side of things was very well handled and the actors were fairly solid throughout.

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Ugetsu

I finally got to see Magnificent Seven and I have to say I agree with everything Vili wrote. I actually found it quite depressing – so many good actors, a big budget, and of course great source material. And it all ends up as a bit meh. I can’t help feeling that somewhere along the line someone chopped a lot out of the original shoot, lots of scenes have a bit of a rushed feel to them, especially in the crucial pre-stories, giving us the backgrounds of each individual. As a result, I found I didn’t care when any of them died, which surely kills the whole point of the film.

And another obvious loss from the previous two versions is the lack of any real subtext or allegorical background to the film. Briefly the film touches on the notion of the bad guy as being an exemplar of American capitalism, but once that is out of the way, it rushes on to the fairly mediocre battle scenes.

One thing that did strike me is that there seemed to be a conscious attempt to base it more on Seven Samurai than The Magnificent Seven. An obvious example is the design and layout of the town, with even a lake or pond mirroring the flooded rice paddies of Kurosawa’s village (although this mysteriously disappeared during the actual battle). The attack on the mine was an obvious echo of the Samurai attack on where the slaves were kept, but in contrast to the beauty and tension of Kurosawa’s scene, it was almost ridiculously truncated and half hearted.

It did occur to me that if (as I suspect) a huge amount of the original film was left on the cutting room floor, there may actually be an interesting five part Netflix series that could be rescued from Fuqua’s version.

I should say, in the interests of fairness, that I watched it on a small screen with a Brazilian-Japanese friend, and she loved it and said it was as good as Seven Samurai. Needless to say, I didn’t agree.

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