September 26 2016, 8:02am
The Magnificent Seven (2016) - Hmmm not sure what to think. Denzel is great as usual, but the film focuses a little too much on him. Chris Pratt is ok, they give hints of character depth, but never go further with him. He's an alcoholic, but that comes up in one, maybe two scenes and then is forgotten. He plays the Steve McQueen role, but just doesn't have Steve's charisma here, which is odd as we know that he can be charming as heck.
Byung Hun Lee is wasted, stereotypical Asian badass. No real rhyme or reason for his existence. Guess we are supposed to just assume he's Chinese and came over with the rail road workers. Vincent Denofrio is his most Denofrio in this film, weird voice and inflections. Antoine Fuqua needed to control the guy. There's a steretypical one dimensional Mexican bandit that they try and setup as Pratt's buddy, but the whole interaction comes off as mean and racist most of the time. You have a weird interaction with a Native American who just decides to join up. No real reason why except Denzel's character speaking his language and saying he's going to fight bad men and probably die. What could've been a showcase fight between him and another Native American is over in less than a minute.
Finally Ethan Hawke's Goodnight Robichaux. Suffering from PTSD after the Civil War (not the Captain America one

) which you see in the first gunfight, but then he gets over it quickly with no explanation as to how or why.
Characterization aside, the action is great and the film somewhat entertaining, if overlong at 2hrs 12mins. Not anywhere as good as the 1960 original or Kurosawa's Seven Samurai on which both are based. For me if you have nothing to do and need to waste time watch it, otherwise skip.