Yeeha and other cowboy nonsense.

We seem to be having a small resurgence in western themed media. Over on HBO / Sky Atlantic / Your favourite torrent site, Westworld has melded the genre with Sci-FI elements where of course, various lies, treachery and deceit are taking place. Earlier in the year, we had the oscar bait known as the Hateful 8, and of course the absolute car crash which was Adam Sandler’s Ridiculous 6. Even Rockstar Games managed to get tongues wagging with the announcement of Red Dead Redemption 2 due next year.

Well now we have yet another western with a number in the title in the Magnificent Seven, starring quite a lot of people. This is a remake of the original Magnificent Seven back in 1960 with a load of people too. That was a remake of Seven Samurai, released in 1954 and is classed by many as being one of the best films ever made. So what can this version of the same story show us for 2016 as opposed to the times that the others were produced? Well it seems that for one, the Old West was certainly more politically correct for starters, with a cast designed to not offend as many people as humanly possibly, including an actual strong woman character too!

But bollocks to all that, what happens? Our epic story begins with Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard), the evil villain who should have have bombastic music when he enters a room and a mustache he can fiddle while sniggering, basically terrorise the yokels of a small town called Rose Creek. Basically he’s trying to make them leave while buying their land as cheap as possible as he has a gold claim just up the dirt road. No idea why he wanted the town gone too, but again it’s apparently not important to the plot.

They do this by burning down the church and also killing various people because of reasons. One of those who died is the strong young woman Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett)’s husband, and as you can imagine, she’s well not chuffed.

Up pops non-bounty hunter (he’s a warrant officer of various places as he keeps telling everyone) Denzel Washington who offs a naughty scamp, aided because of reasons by Chris Pratt,playing the role of the gambler / drinker / slut of the film. Together they get hired by Mrs Cullen to take of the naughty scamps who f*cked it all up for the townsfolk of Rose Creek.

Mrs Cullen also has vast quantities of cash which is good enough to hire six further gunmen, which is where our other stars like Ethan Hawke and Vincent D’Onofrio as the big hair bear chap come into play. Randomly we also get an indian turn-up because he needed to find a path or something, and after the indian chap played by Martin Sensmeier and Denzel chomps down on an animal’s heart, the stage is set for the epic showdown to end all showdowns.

They killed her husband……and now she’s after Street Justice. All while looking damned fine!

We get some unknown bad guy’s asses kicked to start with, and the corrupt sheriff lives to go and tell Mr. Bad Guy that stuff happened in Rose Creek. Basically what happens next is that we get a training montage of the townsfolk learning to fight, and then some genius level thinking which would put the A-Team to shame where they modify the town, let alone the van, all within 7 days.

What ensues after that, well, it’s rather hard to describe.

Basically it’s an all out war between good and evil with so many explosions and gunfire that even Michael Bay would get aroused. The film basically devolves into a bloody farce which you can’t help but watch, even as the situation gets even more ridiculous in terms of how many die, and exactly how many bullets each of the Magnificent Seven can take! This may of course be what happened in the previous films mentioned, so in that case, perhaps they got it spot on.

To be honest, the best way I can describe the whole film is that it’s OK. There’s nothing too bad about all aspects of the presentation, it’s enjoyable, the characters are well acted, have a little bit of time to be introduced and then get some development part way through too.

The set-pieces are all very well done. The various twists though you see coming a bloody mile away though and frankly the character of Bogue was about as effective at being evil as a wet sponge. He was literally just a place holder for “insert bad person here!” for everyone to hate. The recognisable theme of the Magnificent Seven was kept to the end, and honestly I can’t say this was anything like a full on classic.

That being said, it was at least enjoyable with some excellent stunts and set-pieces, and despite the escalating insanity of what was going on towards the end, with a body count higher than Robocop and Rambo combined, I left the cinema with a smile, if also suffering from some slight disbelief. Recommendation then for the new Magnificent Seven? Sure thing, catch it if you’re not planning on watching Doctor Strange instead!