The Magnificent Seven
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Year Released: 2016
Rating: 2.0
Yet another remake of the Japanese masterpiece Seven Samurai - to go along with the 1960 American Western - has Denzel Washington playing the Yul Brynner part and Chris Pratt as Steve McQueen (more or less) as they round up five other skilled fighters to defend a town from a sociopathic gold-hungry baron (Peter Sarsgaard). Fuqua is good at staging big fight scenes, but it's still underwhelming as a redemption tale - I think the Brynner-McQueen version is 'pretty good' but far from 'great' - and doesn't add much complexity to the original narrative, aside from changing the racial identity of its lead character (the classic theme song remains intact ... and at least Horst Buchholz is missing). To simplify how the three versions compare to each other: Kurosawa >>>>> Sturges >> Fuqua.
