A cowboy retelling of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven ushered in more realistic depictions of life in the American west. The film was exciting, had plenty of action and enough movie stars to live up to its moniker of ‘magnificent.’ The sequel, Return of the Magnificent Seven is somewhat mis-titled, as Yul Brynner is really the only returning actor, with Steve McQueen’s Vin role assumed by the much less charismatic Robert Fuller.
Even more significant than the loss of most of the original cast, is the fact that the script by Larry Cohen is dull with no real excitement, with not nearly enough action or memorable characters to sustain it. The Magnificent Seven ended with Chico staying behind in the village and marrying the lovely Petra. This new film takes place a few years later, and tells the story of new trouble in the Mexican village where Chico (now played by Julián Mateos) fought beside the other six gunslingers and has since retired to the life of farming.
Obsessed with building a church in memory of his sons, bandit Lorca (Emilio Fernandez) and his army raid three villages kidnapping all the men in order to work on the church; in doing that, he kidnaps Chico a friend of gun man Chris (Brynner). Petra comes to see Chris to give him the news and pleads for his help. Joined by Vin, and some new recruits, form a new gang to go in and rescue the men and the village from Lorca. Of the new men, two stand out as well developed characters: Claude Akins plays Frank, a widower who no longer cares about his own life and safety, and Warren Oates, who plays the lecherous playboy Colbee, who came along to see a village full of women with no men. The rest of the cast is less important and never developed enough to matter much.
It’s nice to see Yul Brynner back as Chris, but his performance lacks any excitement. He fails to deliver the charismatic gunfighter of the first film. At times it seems like Brynner is going through the motions of playing the character, so he could cash the check. Perhaps after filming started, he realized this wasn’t going to be a very memorable film.
Return of the Magnificent Seven provides some interesting departures from the original film, with a surprising reason for the missing men, and a villain who isn’t all he seems to be. So while the sequel is nowhere near as good as The Magnificent Seven these twists might intrigue you enough to give the film a chance.
Presented in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, Return of the Magnificent Seven appears a bit over scrubbed, but is an acceptable 1080p transfer. There are some black and white specks throughout the print, and the image is somewhat soft in places. Thankfully, detail is quite good in most close-ups.
The film features a solid DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track. Like The Magnificent Seven, the surrounds are surprisingly effective. As you’d expect, the most obvious uses for the rear speakers are for cross-channel gunfire and composer Elmer Bernstein’s now-iconic main theme. Dialogue is always clear and understandable.
We don’t get much in the way of special features:
- Trailer (1080p, 2:31)
