At this point... I have to discount any review of a film that says "they made it more politically correct" without going to to details. For one... WHY do you think it's more politically correct than the Sturges film? (A film by the way in which the Mexican government insisted upon all Mexican characters other than the outlaws as always wearing pristine and clean clothing as much as possible... So... Yeah.)
Secondly, if it does do what you say it does... WHY is that a problem?
"It's no fun" and "It was too politically correct" have no meaning without some kind of context. They frankly feel cheap, and oft repeated rather than thought out as criticisms go.
I wrote a more detailed review, but I don't feel like posting it here. I never said it wasn't fun either. The action sequences in the movie are well shot and mostly fun to watch.
The Seven are a more ethnically diverse group this time. The villains are no longer empathetic figures. They are one-dimensional, cookie-cutter villains. The Mexican bandits in the original are harsh figures, but they are simply trying to survive in a harsh world. Calvera was an interesting character with some actual depth to him. The villains here have none of those qualities. They are basically the stand-in for modern, evil corporate CEO type villains usually found in modern action movies. But they have even less depth.
Fuqua never really challenges the audience here like I think a good western can do. Sturges' original film did challenge the audience at times and let them come to their own conclusions. Chisolm's reasoning is telegraphed early on in the movie. Sometimes, less can be more. Clint Eastwood understood that when he was making A Fistful of Dollars. And by that, there are moments there where his character reveals a lot with only minimal amount of dialogue. There's no heartbreaking monologue. Well there was one, but Eastwood hated it and shortened it to one simple line. But the line is effective so the audience can fill in the rest of the blanks.
To me this remake reminds me a lot of modern video games. Specifically, modern video games will more often than not hold your hand and tell you exactly what to do and how to play throughout the game. As a result, the game is more accessible and friendly to casual gamers. Some would argue that classic games where you had to figure things out and come up with your own strategies and plans of attack and their difficulty made them more appealing. There are times here where I feel like the plot and writing really holds the audience hands. The movie knows and tells us exactly how we should and have to feel all the time. Considering this is a remake of a classic movie, it's hard to ignore.
You talk about lack of context and things feeling cheap.
Well, there are a couple things there directly lifted from the original. However, their use and placement in the movie feels cheap and really has no context. It feels like they were stuck in there because "well we need to use this piece of music at some point" or "we need to use this classic line by this character at some point." When the new movie uses those specific elements from the original, they definitely lack context and feel cheap.
