The Magnificent Seven has everything going for it, a near-perfect cast, a truly magnificent score and the fact it is very exciting as a western. Maybe not as good as Seven Samurai, but boy it is by far one of the better remakes out there. If you want a bad remake, see Psycho, starring Vince Vaughan or The Wicker Man, starring Nicolas Cage, in my opinion they should never have been made. The Magnificent Seven is an example of how a remake should be made, it was one of those pleasant surprises for me of as soon as the first note of the score blared I knew hey this is great stuff.

The plot is simple, but I like simplicity, sometimes simplicity is good, but it is a great concept and very well constructed. It really helps as well that the action sequences are tremendously exciting, and that the landscapes are truly dazzling. Elmer Bernstein's score has a lot to do with The Magnificent Seven's success I think as well, it is rousing, triumphant and bombastic and very like the score for Lawrence of Arabia it sticks in the mind for a long time afterwards. If I were to choose to which score I preferred over this and the Great Escape, I think this score, The Great Escape was great but I have always found that whenever I hum both tunes people are less annoyed by The Magnificent Seven.

The screenplay is focused, humorous and wise, maybe a little stilted on occasions but it develops the characters well and has heart. And the actors are wonderful. Yul Brynner is the epitome of coolness here, I do think he was better in The King and I, where he was absolutely magnificent, but he does a great job here. Eli Wallach is suitably slimy as the villainous Calvera, who is more than a cardboard cut-out, and Steve McQueen, James Coburn, Charles Bronson and Robert Vaughn are all great. Overall, this is a great film, very exciting, great to look at and has a magnificent score. 9.5/10 Bethany Cox

I'm sure that Asian Yul Brynner must have been intrigued at the prospect of doing an American western, maybe it was the oriental origin of the story of The Magnificent Seven that intrigued him.

The title refers to seven gunfighters who hire out to a Mexican village which is being systematically looted by a bandit named Calverra, played by Eli Wallach in his career film role. The film really ought to be called Shane Times Seven because each one of the seven is an aspect of Shane, the wandering knight who comes to the area, rights the wrongs in the place and moves on. Of course in this case a few of the seven stay.

The seven are Yul Brynner, Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, James Coburn, Brad Dexter, Robert Vaughn, and Horst Bucholtz. What I like about the Magnificent Seven and it's the mark of a great film is that each of the seven establishes his own personality in the film. Of course these are seven great film actors and are given a great script to work with. It's in contrast to the bandits where they are led by an admittedly charismatic leader in Wallach, but if he's killed they all cease to function. The seven also function well as a team because they are professionals.

They're in Mexico for a variety of individual reasons, but all of them realizes they are in a dying profession in America. Very little call for their services, so $20.00 for six weeks work in Mexico has a lot of appeal. It's better than clerking in a grocery store for men of action.

There's so much I love about The Magnificent Seven, it has two finely choreographed gunfights with Wallach's bandits, it has characters with style and grace. Most of all it has Elmer Bernstein's best musical score and that's saying something because Bernstein wrote so many great ones. But that infectious theme set a standard for the writing of western film music, in fact film music in general. If you've never seen The Magnificent Seven, that theme once heard is never forgotten.

Sam Peckinpah's films clearly show the influence that John Sturges's The Magnificent Seven had. But this one establishes the mold.

I generally hate remakes and rarely are they as good as or better than the originals. In the case of "The Magnificent Seven", however, it's a really tough sell because the original was an Akira Kurosawa classic--a film currently in the top 10 on IMDb! So, there really is no way this western can be better...but it still is very good. In particular, the musical score by Elmer Bernstein is one of the best in the history of westerns and the cast of actors was incredibly--with the likes of Yul Brynner, James Coburn, Steve McQueen and many others as the seven.

The film begins in a tiny Mexican town. The villagers are being plundered and harassed by a Mexican gang (led by Eli Wallach). Their choice is to keep knuckling under and starve or leave to get outside help. They decide on the latter and soon a small delegation heads up into the States to find some gunfighters willing to work for VERY little money. Luckily, they find a couple guys who seem to be tired of their lifestyles and want to do something better with their lives (Coburn and Brynner). These two are able to enlist some friends in the cause--no matter how hopeless it looks against an army of 40 men. What happens next, you'll need to see for yourself.

What's not to like about this film? Very little. However, as I stated above it was a remake and so it needs to lose a point for originality. In addition, a few of the deaths seemed silly--like folks just wanting to die (especially the first member of the seven). Still, a very enjoyable and well made Hollywood film that is well worth seeing.