The Magnificent Seven (Antoine Fuqua, 2016)

We can let the fact that a remake of the 1960 Western is wholly pointless slide, never mind that the source film itself was still just a morally simplified retelling for the American audience of Kurosawa's masterpiece. Because this manages to fail entirely on its own merits. The warning bells are there right from the first second, as a CGI-enhanced landscape gives way to an old-style Technicolor palette, which may be a break from the modern propensity to alternate constantly between blue and yellow sepia, but also serves as a statement of intent to make an old-school western, whether we want one or not.
The action is transposed from Mexico to the States, because who cares about Mexican peasants in the Trump era? And what does it matter that when the cartoonish levels of carnage by the evil land baron who terrorises the townsfolk pass by entirely without government intervention, it makes even less sense because of the transposition? Then the band, which is slavishly built up of every improbable ethnic representation, right down to a Chinese man throwing knives and an Indian brave (liberal Hollywood really is its own worst enemy sometimes), have their teeth extracted at once by the mercenary motive that made the previous versions more nuanced being forgotten about without so much as a by your leave.
After several instances of robbery from a few more films and boring fighting conducted in the spirit of body count hyper-inflation being a virtue, the politically predictable assortment of survivors ride off into the sunset. Cue the original Elmer Bernstein theme and the opportunity to reflect on the hours and millions wasted.

4/10