Over half a century after the original movies of the same name, this Magnificent Seven remake in 2016 stars Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt (who both perform outstandingly) among other strong supporting actors like Lee Byung-Hun (who also does an excellent job), Martin Sensmeier (who does pretty good), Manuel Garcia-Rulfo (who does pretty good), Ethan Hawke (who does alright) and Vincent D’Onofrio (who also does alright) – together they make up The Magnificent Seven – a group of seven expert gunslingers (well, one throws knives & darts, and another shoots arrows) who agree to save a small western village from being occupied & slaughtered by a small army of wealthy mafia-type bandits with a financial interest in local mining operations.
Although there are two megastars supported by several other strong performances here, I would have liked to see much stronger characters in the opposition.
Martial arts wise, there’s a lot of gun slinging, not much fist fighting, but there’s some creative battlefield tactics at work, so it’s definitely got martial arts value.
Plot wise, it’s a pretty simple concept, and although the acting is great by Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt, the action can get a bit slow or monotonous at times, with over drawn out shooting scenes, a bit of gritty drama and a bit too much horror genre creeping in with innocent people being slaughtered by a gatling gun while babies are crying etc. Some people might call it a masterpiece but it’s mixing up the genres too much for me – I’m here for the action heroes and on that basis I rate this movie just OK. You won’t get terribly bored if you’ve not seen it before, but you won’t be in a hurry to rewatch it either.