Author:
Simulacrum
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Date:
4/22/2016 7:03:52 AM
Subject:
RE: Magnificent Seven remake
The impression I get from this version is that some bad guys committed some depredations in a town full of ambiguously virtuous women, and they want Denzel & Co. to avenge something.
First, if you want to sell the idea that serious gunhands are coming to avenge the raping of your sister and the shooting of your dog, said gunhands should be serious and scary. The trailer makes them look like the cast of Ocean's Eleven in cowboy costumes. They wink. They smirk. They deliver cute one-liners. I don't get it.
The point of the original Magnificent Seven was deadly serious. As everybody knows (and as the filmmakers acknowledged in the opening credits), it was a remake of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai. Although the western had a lot of '50s posturing and silly speechifying, it understood that the theme was sacrifice and doing the right thing. The seven gunfighters were grim, like the samurai. Well, actually, the gunfighters were a lot more grim than the samurai, who admittedly joked quite a bit. But the point is that neither movie was about "revenge." They were about helping hungry farmers who were being preyed on by evil bandits, and the reward was simply knowing that you helped them.
This remake looks like somebody cast a new Rat Pack in a movie version of Call of Juarez. And those hats. I guess the new filmmakers wanted to pay tribute to the look/feel of the '50s version, but . . . those hats . . .
