Denzel and Antoine Fuqua to ride with The Magnificent Seven

[Incarnadine]

The OW estimates just keep dropping. Early evening last night it was looking like the low 40's, the most recent estimate is down to just 34m for the weekend.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

The OW estimates just keep dropping. Early evening last night it was looking like the low 40's, the most recent estimate is down to just 34m for the weekend.

I can't believe how Storks is tracking at only 21.2 million for the weekend.

35.3 million is still a very good result for TM7. It still is the 2nd biggest western behind Cowboys and Aliens (36.4 million).

 

[TheVileOne]

In all honesty the only characters with actual arcs are Denzel, Pratt and Hawke. I wasn't even entirely sure why Red Harvest joined up aside from it being alluded to that his tribe cast him out.

Spoiler

Interestingly enough, Nic Pizzolatto's earlier draft basically has Red Harvest ending up with Haley Bennett's character. He basically plays the Chico role.

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

I saw it recently. I like it.

 

[Slushy]

[YT]aGMrw3reuFI[/YT]

The Magnificent Seven can make you do anything.

#Inspiration

 

[I SEE SPIDEY]

I thought it was a fun movie.

 

[Loki882]

Yeah it was pretty good. Nothing groundbreaking certainly, but then again it didn't need to be.

 

[dude stannis]

*(The ol' "the movie could have used some fun" is a lazy film criticism cliche at this point anyways)

This, a million times this.

 

[MOVIELORD101]

REALLY fun movie. This is what we should've had more of this summer. All we got in that department were Jason Bourne, Star Trek, and Tarzan.

Spoiler

I was kinda surprised how many of the 7 die by the end. Borderline half the team is slaughtered, mostly due to that blasted gatling gun. I was particularly shocked Pratt's character died, given how popular he is right now in Hollywood and us geeks. Wasn't expecting that.

 

[TheVileOne]

REALLY fun movie. This is what we should've had more of this summer. All we got in that department were Jason Bourne, Star Trek, and Tarzan.

Spoiler

I was kinda surprised how many of the 7 die by the end. Borderline half the team is slaughtered, mostly due to that blasted gatling gun. I was particularly shocked Pratt's character died, given how popular he is right now in Hollywood and us geeks. Wasn't expecting that.

Spoiler

In the 1960 movie, only three of them survive as well. Same with Seven Samurai. All except three survive.

 

[Guts]

REALLY fun movie. This is what we should've had more of this summer. All we got in that department were Jason Bourne, Star Trek, and Tarzan.

Spoiler

I was kinda surprised how many of the 7 die by the end. Borderline half the team is slaughtered, mostly due to that blasted gatling gun. I was particularly shocked Pratt's character died, given how popular he is right now in Hollywood and us geeks. Wasn't expecting that.

Spoiler

I haven't seen this movie or the original, but 4 of the seven samurai died in Akira Kurosawa's movie.

 

[RockSP]

REALLY fun movie. This is what we should've had more of this summer. All we got in that department were Jason Bourne, Star Trek, and Tarzan.

Spoiler

I was kinda surprised how many of the 7 die by the end. Borderline half the team is slaughtered, mostly due to that blasted gatling gun. I was particularly shocked Pratt's character died, given how popular he is right now in Hollywood and us geeks. Wasn't expecting that.

Spoiler

I agree about Pratt...didn't expect that. Glad they did it, though. I enjoy it when movies don't do the expected thing. Similar to Sam Jackson dying early in that shark movie, heh.

 

[Jay Beezy]

REALLY fun movie. This is what we should've had more of this summer. All we got in that department were Jason Bourne, Star Trek, and Tarzan.

Spoiler

I was kinda surprised how many of the 7 die by the end. Borderline half the team is slaughtered, mostly due to that blasted gatling gun. I was particularly shocked Pratt's character died, given how popular he is right now in Hollywood and us geeks. Wasn't expecting that.

I can't relate to your feelings on two of those three movies you mentioned, but I enjoyed this.

 

[Erzengel]

REALLY fun movie. This is what we should've had more of this summer. All we got in that department were Jason Bourne, Star Trek, and Tarzan.

Spoiler

I was kinda surprised how many of the 7 die by the end. Borderline half the team is slaughtered, mostly due to that blasted gatling gun. I was particularly shocked Pratt's character died, given how popular he is right now in Hollywood and us geeks. Wasn't expecting that.

Spoiler

If you are familiar with Seven Samurai/Samurai 7/Magnificent Seven movies, there's only 3 survivors each time. However, seeing as there were liberties taken and not all the characters from this movie are a linear translation from the previous series it does leave you guessing. Also in the original, there's no connection with the leader of the Seven and the leader of the bandits/Bogue.

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

Spoiler

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

.

The "no fun" bit was not directed at you but a comment at the preceding posts about that subject. I just bundled it with my thoughts on what you said about the film being "PC".

I can't say I agree at all about the Sturges film presenting Calvera's predicament in a way we are supposed to empathize with at all. They are thugs through and through. There's no indication to me that we are supposed to have some kind of sympathy for their predicament. I think the whole bit about them needing food for winter is to justify why they are willing to go all out on this fly speck of a town. I think there's little if any ambiguity about where our sympathies should be directed. If this film is similar in that sense, I find it odd to count that as some kind of detriment or negative. Calvera himself is pretty much a ruthless thug. Any supposed philosophical insight is actually about how Calvera can't understand anything outside of his own naked greed and feelings of power over the weak. He can't understand much though he styles himself as some kind of thoughtful and philosophical leader. [BLACKOUT]Thus his amazement that mercenaries hired by people who betrayed them would come back and finish the job. He dies, never understanding anything other than greed, just another barbarian warlord lwho bleeds out into the dust.
[/BLACKOUT]

There is some ambiguity as to the motivations of some of the Seven in Sturge's film I will grant you, but haven't seen Fuqua's film yet I can't say yet what the differences are. All in all though, the Sturge's version is only SLIGHTLY more complex than some of the other film's of it's day but I can't pretend it's as morally complex as Kurosawa's film or is trying to lay down a narrative that's filled with grays per se. [BLACKOUT]Yes we get the town leader turning on the Seven, but we see that the majority of the town isn't down with that decision once the Seven come back. It's mostly a straight forward tale of a rag tag band of unlikely protectors, most with shady pasts that are still better than the men they have been hired to kill. In the end all of them come through in some form or another, even the coward and the one in it for the promise of riches only he can see.[/BLACKOUT]

As for the racial diversity... I still don't understand that being a cogent critique. Why is this an issue for this film?

 

[TheVileOne]

Maybe you should watch the film first.

 

[warhorse78]

Saw this last night. I usually love westerns, and I loved the TV show with Michael Bhien (the gambler in that one was my favorite played by Antony Starke) and I have become a fan of Chris Pratt, so I went in, fully enthusiastic, but left, bored. The movie was boring and not fun..... I'll probably forget about this in a few days.

 

[Loki882]

REALLY fun movie. This is what we should've had more of this summer. All we got in that department were Jason Bourne, Star Trek, and Tarzan.

Spoiler

I was kinda surprised how many of the 7 die by the end. Borderline half the team is slaughtered, mostly due to that blasted gatling gun. I was particularly shocked Pratt's character died, given how popular he is right now in Hollywood and us geeks. Wasn't expecting that.

Spoiler

That's actually consistent across pretty much all versions of this story. They're up against overwhelming odds and, even though they win in the end, a lot of them don't make it out alive. It makes sense actually.

And I was actually expecting Pratt's character to die, so I wasn't surprised by that. It was either going to be him or Denzel's character (I was sure of that going in) who died and, given how the film was marketed and the character's presented, I just found it far more likely that it'd be Pratt.

 

[Pink Ranger]

I thought the movie was above average, but that was it. The middle act really dragged for me. It doesn't hold a candle to either of the originals, but I'd put it roughly on part with Return of the Magnificent Seven and Guns of the Magnificent Seven.

 

[Kyle]

I think '3:10 To Yuma' (2007) and classics like 'The Good, Bad, and the Ugly' spoiled me rotten, lol. While the shootouts were AWESOME! I found the other parts of the film to be a fun let-down. 7.5/10. I guess I went in hoping for a new '3:10 To Yuma' and left... not with a bad impression nor unimpressed (this film will most likely reign supreme for best shootout/s of the year), but wanting more. All style, very little substance

Spoiler

(I hardly even felt anything when some of the seven died - if the film focused more on character depth those scenes should have really left a mark).

 

[CaptainWagner]

Saw it. It was enjoyable, but I feel like it failed to develop most of the characters, which was one of the strengths of the original. There were little moments here and there that alluded to a wider character arc, especially with the villain, but they never amount to anything. I have to wonder if there was a lot cut out.

Spoiler

It was especially frustrating that the two survivors with Denzel at the end were the two least developed out of the whole crew.

 

[Iron_Stark]

I saw this over the weekend really enjoyed it. I want to see it again.

Spoiler

I never saw the original Japanese Seven Samurai or the 60s one, so I didn't know about four of them dying, so throughout the movie I kept thinking "I hope they don't make a sequel and do like other Hollywood movies do with numbered titles and just add an extra number for it, like the Oceans movies, calling the next one The Magnificent 8"

 

[Pink Ranger]

I saw this over the weekend really enjoyed it. I want to see it again.

Spoiler

I never saw the original Japanese Seven Samurai or the 60s one, so I didn't know about four of them dying, so throughout the movie I kept thinking "I hope they don't make a sequel and do like other Hollywood movies do with numbered titles and just add an extra number for it, like the Oceans movies, calling the next one The Magnificent 8"

It is worthwhile noting that the original from the 1960s generated three sequels, none of which were close to being as good as the first.

 

[Iron_Stark]

It is worthwhile noting that the original from the 1960s generated three sequels, none of which were close to being as good as the first.

Really? I didn't know that.

*just looked them up quickly*

Thaaat's how you do sequel names with numbers on them.

 

[Tony Stark]

I really, really, really enjoyed this film. It's a good remake to the original as well as 7 samurai. This is a very different film from the 1960's film, the characters are all different, the villiage is different, the villain is different, yet it's pretty much the same basic plot.

Everyone is a joy to watch in this film. There's great chemistry between the actors, and I just loved when the original theme starts playing during the closing credits.

I hope that the box office is successful enough for Hollywood to bring this sorely missed genre back. I'm a western junky. The Cowboy film is America's mythology. Unfortunately there comes along a film like Wild, Wild, West or Lone Ranger that scares the film industry away from the Genre, and Clint Eastwood who seemed like the only guy that was trying to keep the film genre alive, has moved on to doing docu-dramas.

8.5/10