A Few Words About A few words about...™ The Magnificent Seven (2016) -- in 4k UHD Blu-ray (1 Viewer)

[Robert Harris]

Antoine Fuqua's remake of the great 1960 original by John Sturges, in turn, based upon Kurosawa's 1954 The Seven Samurai, is a fun film.

Unlike its predecessors, it's never a great one.

Nice performances from a superb group of players, beautiful cinematography by Mauro Fiore, and a score partially written by James Horner, completed by Simon Franglen, yield an entertaining film, that will please the uninitiated.

If there is an overriding problem, it begins with the town set, which looks very much like a western town set. But possibly that's what towns in the old west actually looked like at the time.

The story has been spiced up a bit, along with some unnecessary expository dialogue, but again, it's okay.

It's loud, with a superb Dolby Atmos track, and the 4k UHD Blu-ray, encoded with HDR, looks superb. For the record, I had to bring up brightness about 4-5 clicks.

The latest raid on the old UA library, yields yet another okay result.

Word has it that the next out of the gate, may be Zach Galifianakis, Michael Fassbender, and Ellen Page, in a re-make (in color) of Some Like it Hot.

Stand by.

The high point for me, the teasing of a few bars of Elmer Bernstein's extraordinary theme toward the end of the film, may be worth the price of admission.


Image - 5

Audio - 5 (Dolby Atmos)

4k - 5

Pass / Fail - Pass

Recommended

RAH

 

[gadgtfreek]

Looking forward to this, just need Oppo to get that 203 shipping.

 

[Todd Erwin]

And they used Bernstein's theme over the disc menu. My more detailed review will be forthcoming, closer to street date (12/20).

 

[Allansfirebird]

Word has it that the next out of the gate, may be Zach Galifianakis, Michael Fassbender, and Ellen Page, in a re-make (in color) of Some Like it Hot.

Stand by.

 

[Carlo_M]

I'm so on the fence about this. I definitely like most of the principal actors, and I was a fan of some of Fuqua's films (The Replacement Killers, Training Day). But obviously I'm a huge fan of Seven Samurai, one of my first forays into foreign films in my youth, and I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said viewing it was a life-altering event for me.

Who am I kidding. I'll probably get it.

 

[Dee Zee]

I enjoyed the film at the theaters, I like westerns.

 

[Robert Crawford]

I'll have my disc tomorrow as I'm starting to increase my 4k/UHD film library for future use. I don't own a UHD display yet, but I did just upgrade my player to Oppo 203.

 

[dpippel]

I think I have some UHD/HDR tweaking to do on my LG OLED65E6P and Oppo UDP-203. While the clarity of this title was excellent it had the same problem on my setup as Star Trek Beyond did - shadows in dark scenes are never black, they're brown. Brightly lit scenes look mostly superb, but as soon as things move to a nighttime setting or a dim building interior, there's just a wash of brownish haze that permeates the entire frame and the blacks are not BLACK, which for an OLED display is a crime. Time for me to play around.

As for the film itself, it didn't grab me. The principal actors were all doing their jobs (I particularly liked Ethan Hawke's Goodnight Robicheaux), but I found the execution of the story to be very generic. The action sequences for the most part had that same generic feel and were way over the top in the last third of the movie. In addition, I thought Peter Saarsgard's big baddie Bartholemew Bogue was completely one dimensional and cliched, and without a compelling antagonist the film really suffered for me. I'm going back to the 1960 original at some point today just wash the taste of this remake out of my mouth.

 

[DavidMiller]

I thought it was ok in the theaters but picked it up because I keep hearing great things about this disc. This brought me up to 65 UHD Blu-rays now.

 

[Richard V]

Combination of beautiful cinematography and HDR, make this disc a stunning treat, despite the story being only so, so. No regrets at all, but still prefer the 1960 version much more.

 

[Matt Hough]

I agree. The movie is OK but doesn't compare to its predecessors (in Japanese and English). I did like the seven actor/leads. I agree that your main antagonist was simply ruthless with no other colors to his makeup.

But the video and audio presentations in UHD and Atmos (Dolby True HD 7.1 on my setup) were simply stunning. Really enjoyed just basking in the gorgeous color, exquisite sharpness, and that magnificent sound. And when Bernstein's theme revved up for a bit during the credits, it's just heaven hearing it completely surrounding you with its eloquence.