But with a bad script even a good director can’t possibly make a good film.” In many ways, The Magnificent Seven is a wonderful example of this truth. Kurosawa once wrote that “with a good script a good director can produce a masterpiece with the same script a mediocre director can make a passable film. On top of that, the editing is likewise particularly pedestrian, at times even haphazard, and as a result the film lacks the sense of place and character that both of its predecessors, and Kurosawa’s original in particular, so well embody. But the story remains strangely undercooked despite the numerous rewrites that it went through, the dialogue alternates between clichéd and laughable, and Fuqua’s work from the director’s chair is surprisingly toothless and unable to makie use of even the rare opportunities that the screenplay would offer him. We all know that the base material is strong enough, there are plenty of good ideas that the filmmakers have thrown in, and it seems evident that the talented cast would be up for the task of delivering a modern classic. This is a pity because there should certainly be an interesting film in there somewhere. The Magnificent Seven is full of ideas that would sound good on paper or in a production meeting, but remain either entirely undeveloped or poorly executed on screen. And even more disappointingly, this is just one example of a wider, indeed rather fundamental flaw with the film. Unfortunately, the screenplay never manages to fulfil this hint of a promise. The new The Magnificent Seven likewise appears to attach itself onto a contemporary socio-political issue, that of social and economic inequality and how they effect democracy. The original The Magnificent Seven can be interpreted as a commentary on the directions of US foreign policy following the Korean War. Seven Samurai reflects on post-WW2 Japan and its large scale societal changes. Beyond the surface, these films have always had something contemporary to say, encouraging an update on the formula. Antoine Fuqua’s The Magnificent Seven wants to stand on its own. The basic structure is naturally the same - a town needs help, seven heroes are gathered to help it, defences are built, a battle is fought - but beyond that the smaller details follow neither Kurosawa’s film nor Sturges’s western adaptation of it. Here is my review.įirst things first: the new Magnificent Seven is not a direct remake of either of the two films mentioned above. I went to see it to find out how it stacks up with the film that inspired it, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, and what its relationship is to John Sturges’s original The Magnificent Seven from 1960. The Magnificent Seven had its worldwide premiere last week.
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