"Magnificent Seven" is an odd beast. It brings in a whole plethora of actors that have very reputable careers but is coupled with a very simplistic script that could've been adopted much better than what it was. For a moment, I was able to forgive that this is a remake of an original Western but then I wonder how much better this movie could've been with a proper script that takes full advantage of this cast.
Chris Pratt and Denzel Washington's talents especially are wasted here. Denzel Washington plays your typical revenge-driven Western protagonist and Chris Pratt has his wit as usual but it isn't utilized to his fullest potential. To give chemistry between all the members of the crew seemed the most trying task for whoever penned this script. The rest of the cast plays their part well but the story leaves much to be desired as far as their motivations.
I see really no reason why five of the magnificent seven even needed to join the fight at all. Give or take at most two. Besides Vincent D'Onofrio's character, the other four members of the cast really fall into caricatures instead of characters. This is because they are hardly given any lines first of all and second of all, their back stories aren't relayed to us in any way.
The first thing that went wrong was the plot because the only one with any motivation to help out are Chris Pratt as Faraday and Denzel Washington as Chisolm it's very puzzling why the others even get involved in a typical revenge. None of the other characters owe anything to Chris Pratt or Denzel Washington's characters and so it seems that the struggle is meaningless. There is no reason for them to join forces so why is the rest of this film even relevant? The antagonists are cardboard cutouts of any western ever and fail to inspire any kind of interest or complexity. On top of that, the seven could just as easily have met along the way (plot convenience) and gotten involved in a much more interesting plot. Much better than rebooting a story that is so basic in structure it could take a few pointers from Batman v Superman. As sad as that is to say.
5/10 basic western tethered to mediocrity.
