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The Middling Seven

We often scoff at Hollywood for turning out too many remakes and failing to deliver anything truly original or enjoyable as a standalone effort. Well, director Antoine Fuqua dares to shake up the remake trend with a remake of a remake, an updated version of "The Magnificent Seven," which seemed like a fun idea with this cast. Sarcasm aside, his latest film fails to deliver.

Fuqua was once a director whose career I was excited to see grow. "Training Day," while never exactly groundbreaking, is one of my favorite crime-thrillers of recent years, a tightly contained film with a ferocious Oscar-winning performance by Denzel Washington. Since then, Fuqua has learned to relish in the bombast, overstaying his welcome in movies, failing to put a period at the end of his rambling sentence (take a look at Washington and Fuqua's second film together, "The Equalizer" if you need more evidence).

And that's the problem with "The Magnificent Seven" - it's a snoozefest at the old corral, a 132-minute gabfest with intermittent gunplay. The characters talk and talk, without ever saying anything of substance.

The story is set in place after the nefarious Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) rides into the town of Rose Creek. He, along with his army of baddies, try to take over the town for their own purposes, killing anyone who stands in the way. Sarsgaard isn't in much of the film but he certainly has fun chewing the scenery every second he can.

A widow of one of Bartholomew's victims, Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett), hires Sam Chisolm (Washington), to keep Rose Creek safe. Slowly, Sam enlists the help of Faraday (Chris Pratt), Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier) and Jack (Vincent D'Onofrio). And this makes seven. How magnificent they are can be called into question.

The standard good guy versus bad guy blueprint can be expected of the western genre and can even be forgiven. But that's not remotely close to this film's main problem. Fuqua has assembled such a talented and charismatic cast and somehow used these tasty ingredidents to create a bland and soulless film. He rarely gives these stars a moment to rise above their caricactures. There's some energy and interplay among the characters but not enough to make it worth the time of talented actors like Washington and Pratt. The gunplay may satisfy diehard western fans but the scenes go on for much too long. At one point, I wondered who was left to kill?

There have been many iterations of "The Magnificent Seven," most famously one starring Steve McQueen (which was an Americanized version of Akira Kurosawa's "Seven Samurai"). I feel everyone has put their own spin on this tale (even Adam Sandler took a shot at it with the horrendous "The Ridiculous Six"). Maybe it's time to let these seven ride off into the sunset for good.