The Magnificent Seven Review
The Magnificent Seven Review – Jack Fitzpatrick
This movie is basically about ‘Cowboy Superheroes’ each with some sort of unique gimmick teaming up and killing A BUNCH of dudes… What’s not to love?
I feel like I have to start off by saying that this movie was just like ‘pure cinema.’ It wasn’t the most complex story in the world, it wasn’t the most original or even creative… But man, was it entertaining. “The Magnificent Seven“ chooses fun and style over the tiresomely gritty and serious take of other recent movies. Instead it took an approach which paid homage to the old classic westerns, managing to feel sort of old-fashioned while it did. There’s no mistaking this movie for reality while watching it, it’s intentionally and utterly over the top when it wants to be and never takes itself too seriously. I feel like “The Magnificent Seven” knew what it was, and aimed to go for just that; To be a fun movie – Nobodies winning any Oscars here and the movie honestly probably won’t be considered quite as memorable as those it proceeded – But I for one, enjoyed the hell out of it. And that was enough for me.
So “The Magnificent Seven” tells the story of a town who is being taken over by… uh… some evil guy and his gang.
“Why?” I hear you ask.
Well because he has a mining company or something.
“So?”
Well… He has to kick everyone out of the town and/or kill them so he can get money somehow or something…?
Yeah…
The main idea though, is that the villain has taken over this small town and is in the business of wrong doing. With the town being mostly vacated by defenceless civilians, the only ones who can stop this menace is THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. (Who by the way is made up of one hell of a diverse cast. But I’ll get back to that later.) Though a ‘teensy’ bit illogical (Considering You-tuber/Podcaster Bandit Incorporated’s point of that if he has a mining company then either he wouldn’t care about this small town which couldn’t possibly be affecting him very much (?) – or alternatively he might even like a town being there due to the workers having somewhere to go for breaks and whatnot.) and despite a bit of nonsensical motivations, the story remains to be RIDICULOUSLY simple… But I loved that about it. Here we get a cartoonishly evil villain whom we are against from the start, a likable cast of heroes and an epic battle full of guns and explosions set in the old west. And it’s a hell of a ride, the movie succeeds with this approach and doesn’t need to strive to be anything more.
One thing that other viewers may have a problem with when it comes to the conflict and story is that it often feels quite impersonal – However, I’d argue that, that is sort of the point. I suppose it depends on which way you look at it. Another aspect that may be considered a flaw is that you can pretty much guess how the movie is all going to end up. This however kind of goes hand-in-hand with the simplicity of the story. It’s obviously done in this way with intent. However, twists and turns, additions and complexity would only have made the movie feel way too full, and most likely would have turned it all in to one convoluted mess. Instead of going for something like this, “The Magnificent Seven” embraces its simplicity, its unrealism and its absurdity.
As a director, Antoine Fuqua proves once again that he is very capable of shooting action. The action is fast paced and extremely chaotic. The film provides its fair share of cool gun-slinging moves throughout, as well as PLENTY of on-screen deaths, explosions and shoot outs. Admittedly however, during just a few passing moments it could sometimes prove to be difficult to tell who was who during these sorts of scenes; “Is that a good guy or a bad guy that just got shot?” was undeniably going through my brain a few times during them. But mostly the movie managed to have fairly clear action especially considering such chaotic battle sequences. These, as well as the scenes between the action are also presented with some beautiful shots, often making use of the scenery. Without fail, the movie definitely looked and felt like a classic western – only with the inclusions of a modern touch to the writing, structure and cinematography.
The aforementioned action was also pretty brutal when considering the M (PG-13) rating… No, it was never grotesque or off-putting but the film certainly never shied away from showing many on-screen deaths. With the small inclusions of some brief blood spray from character to character when they get shot, to the relentlessness of either side of the battle – the movie proves to be a hard M. This aspect of the movie also brought with it a feeling of mortality. Nobody felt invincible, and the danger felt legitimate. Despite being portrayed in quite a ‘super-heroic’ sort of way, if one of our leads got hurt in some way, there was no healing within two scenes or anything like that. No, the movie didn’t forget it’s details – It remembered the little things.
“The Magnificent Seven” also provides some really interesting dialogue throughout its run-time which often even proved to be somewhat poetic – if not, slightly pretentious – lines such as “Money for blood is a peculiar business,” “I seek righteousness, but I’ll take revenge” and “If god didn’t want them slaughtered, he wouldn’t have made them sheep” are all quite worthy of being memorable. (Though these may be homages? It’s not like I’ve seen every western! …Either way, I like them!)
There is a surprisingly good balance among most of the seven leads, characters other than those played by Denzel and Pratt do get time to shine and There’s an essence of both fun and comradery among group. The chemistry between each of the men is pretty damn enjoyable to watch too.
The cast was also …kind of… extremely diverse, but in the context of the movie, it never felt like it was using this in a ‘Look at us! We’re so accepting and progressive!’ kind of way.
In fact, in the context of the movie their nationalities and whatnot where not even really mentioned very much at all. The movie never felt like it was trying to ‘show off’ with its diversity and never felt like it was shoving some sort of diversity message down the audience’s throats.
Rather, “The Magnificent Seven” instead uses cultural diversity the way it should be used in film.
With little to no mention about it, we just accept it and don’t even think about while watching the movie (at least, I didn’t.) They’re all just part of the team and they all get moments to demonstrate their own ‘badassary’ – That’s a word – with each of their own unique combat styles and personalities. With the exception of one or two who weren’t quite as ‘scene stealing’ as I would have liked them to be, however I’d still say that the film does quite an impressive job balancing its array of characters.
One thing I do have something negative to say about when it comes to the characters is that there is very little character development. Most of the characters begin and end as pretty much the same people, they do not have redemptive arcs, personal stakes (Other than the risk of death) or much back story. They are sort of shallow and almost all of what we see of them is in fact just their little gimmicks. Such as ‘Knife guy,’ (as I like to call him) who stabs a lot of guys. ‘Chris Pratt guy’ who is the Star lord of the west in this movie and is also sometimes into magic, and of course the classic (but in reality probably the weakest) character; ‘Mexican guy,’ who was just kind of there… I mean, hell he still shoots better than I ever would and the actor still does a respectable job… but still; He (among the rest of the 7) sometimes proved to have some pretty flat characterization. (Those names I just mentioned are obviously not the characters’ actual names, but it illustrates my point; This is what the characters show of who they are and thus, this is all we really get to see in the characters.)
However, let’s be honest here, shall we? This isn’t a really a character written piece. This isn’t an over-dramatised period piece, this isn’t an Oscar contender and this isn’t the best damn movie that you’ll ever see. Far from it. No, this is simple, old fashioned and pure entertainment. This is a cool take on a western, a remake of a remake and most importantly; Fun. This is “The Magnificent Seven.” So it can be forgiven when some of the characters don’t have the deepest back-stories you’ve ever heard, it can be forgiven when the villain is a little silly and it can be forgiven when the action is a little messy at times. Because I’d argue that the good easily outweighs the bad.
“The Magnificent Seven” is extremely enjoyable from start to finish and I’d definitely say is worthy of going to see in cinemas. No, it’s not the most original movie and isn’t really anything new… But It does have some great action, a little bit of a heart, moments of humor and some very, very cool – though a little shallow – characters. But most importantly, as I’ve probably said ten thousand times in this review already – “The Magnificent Seven” is all around a bloody fun movie.
