Fifty-six years later, Antoine Fuqua movie seems way past its sell-by date, and without bringing little new to the table.

Fuqua’s film is sleek and shiny, like the barrel of Denzel’s gun. It is sweeping, just like the vast landscapes upon which it is set. It ends with one of the most stunning gunfights you could hope for.

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

A good mix of gravitas, comic relief and attempts at some deep stuff with lines like “What we’ve lost in the fire, we’ll find in the ashes”. Saddle up for a thrilling ride with this modern-day Western packed with action.

If I had to chose favourites, I would actually go for Rajkumar Santoshi’s underrated China Gate, over both The Magnificent Seven films. Purely because the former scores over the latter with a far more terrifying villain and a better written team bonding scenes. Watch The Magnificent Seven if you are a Chris Pratt fan or a sucker for the genre.

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…

This film is much closer to the spaghetti western of yore and is not likely to go down as a class act in 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. 

If I had to chose favourites, I would actually go for Rajkumar Santoshi’s underrated China Gate, over both The Magnificent Seven films. Purely because the former scores over the latter with a far more terrifying villain and better written team bonding scenes. Watch The Magnificent Seven if you are a Chris Pratt fan or a sucker for the genre.

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.

Visually the film has all the trappings of a Western. The action sequences are skilfully choreographed and every frame is aesthetically captured by Cinematographer Mauro Fiore’s lens.

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.

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.