(l to r) Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ethan Hawke, Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Vincent D'Onofrio and Martin Sensmeier in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and Columbia Pictures' THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. Photo by Sam Emerson. Courtesy of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures Inc. and Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. © 2016. All Rights Reserved.
– By Mark Glass –
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Why re-tool a classic? It’s almost impossible to duplicate, much less top, the progenitor. More likely, one might attract new fans from a later generation. This one misfires on a couple of key fronts. Badly.
Casting – The 1960 original gave us Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson and Robert Vaughn among the good guys, and Eli Wallach as the head of the plundering gang a village of poor Mexican farmers hired them to defeat. That’s a lot of legends for any oater. This one has Denzel Washington gathering a septet comprised of Ethan Hawke, Chris Pratt (a/k/a Mr. Anna Faris) and a handful of formulaic types. Individual characters, warts and all, were fully developed in the first. We never learn much about this new set of heroes… or feel that we’re missing much from whatever their backstories may have been. We still get the promised “Seven,” but they’re waaaaay short on the “Magnificent” half of the title.
READ THE FULL REVIEW AT CLAYTON-RICHMOND HEIGHTS PATCH:
http://patch.com/missouri/clayton-richmondheights/movie-review-magnificent-seven
- By Cate Marquis - The Tony and Grammy-winning Broadway hit "Hadestown" storms into the…
- By Cate Marquis - The recent biographical film about Michael Jackson has brought the…
(L-R) Blake Segal and Major Attaway in the North American Tour of SPAMALOT. Photo by…
- By Cate Marquis - New Jewish Theater's "A Prayer for the French Republic" is…
Jane Paradise as Sun, with cast as the planets, in Upstream Theater's "The End of…
(L-R): David Wilson (Adam), Kaitlin Feely (Barbara), Leianna Weaver (Lydia) and Ryan Stajmiger (Beetlejuice). Photo…