The Magnificent Seven

It's a romp in parts, a little too obvious and boring in others, but I still have no doubt that some segments of audiences are going to love it. It is still good old-fashioned entertainment.

Overall, the film is an earnest but tepid entry in the genre of the Western...

Given the scope of his role, gross injustice has been done to Denzel Washington's dramatic abilities. We would have loved to know how his character shaped up over the years and how he managed to survive in a White man's landscape. There was enough potential for his character to have evolved into something truly magnificent but the chance was let slip by the director. And that, sadly, is by and large true for the whole film itself…

Seven Samurai besides the remakes has been paid tributes in many a movie – Hollywood and Bollywood. And almost every one of them has been appreciated saying a lot for the original story that remains evergreen. The Magnificent Seven is yet another addition to the list and sure does the job well.

Fuqua's film, set in the 1870s, has a posse so breathtakingly multi-racial it would seem to turn genre convention on its head. Yet, the film never suggests that the white men among the seven had any problem taking orders from a black man, or that there was any friction between a Native American and a former Indian killer. It's revisionist for revisionist's sake—there's no political charge in its challenging of genre conventions.

It isn't that The Magnificent Seven is a bad film. It's made quite competently, and with much deference to the original — or should I say, originals. But the Seven here aren't just magnificent enough. Fuqua's film is to the original what a Colt revolver is to the Gatling gun.