Do you remember how the first Magnificent Seven ended? Yul Brynner and Steve McQueen rode off after polishing off Eli Wallach and his group of bandits. Horst Bucholtz as Chico stayed in the village and married a girl from there. The other four also stayed in six by four graves.
Flash forward now to the present. One day another group of bandits sweep down on the village, they take Chico and the rest of the men as workers on a little project. They've taken the men from two other villages as well.
The call is sent out for help again. Yul Brynner and Robert Fuller in Steve McQueen's role recruit four others and ride back to where they fought that battle many years earlier.
Instead of the eminently practical Eli Wallach whose interest in these poor villages was for supplies during the winter for his gang. This time we're dealing with a fanatic played Emilio Fernandez who Yul Brynner has had dealings with before. He's got all these peasants working as slave labors to rebuild a church as a monument to his two dead sons. The man's trolley has definitely slipped his tracks.
I guess I miss Eli Wallach from the original. I found Fernandez's character to be just too off the mark for me. I can't believe his own men are standing for what he wants.
Just as Steve McQueen came from western television so does his replacement Robert Fuller, fresh from the Laramie series. Fuller is competent enough, but does not have McQueen's charisma by a stretch. Too bad they couldn't get Steve McQueen to repeat his role.
The other four of the new Seven are Jordan Christopher, Claude Akins, Warren Oates, and Rudolfo Acosta. All of them fill roles that we've come to expect of them. Julian Mateos takes Horst Bucholtz's part, a more mature Chico to be sure.
You could not have done this film without that wonderful Elmer Bernstein theme again. What I can't understand is why his score was nominated again as there was nothing original in it.
Return of the Seven is a decent enough remake, but it ain't a patch on the original.
Flash forward now to the present. One day another group of bandits sweep down on the village, they take Chico and the rest of the men as workers on a little project. They've taken the men from two other villages as well.
The call is sent out for help again. Yul Brynner and Robert Fuller in Steve McQueen's role recruit four others and ride back to where they fought that battle many years earlier.
Instead of the eminently practical Eli Wallach whose interest in these poor villages was for supplies during the winter for his gang. This time we're dealing with a fanatic played Emilio Fernandez who Yul Brynner has had dealings with before. He's got all these peasants working as slave labors to rebuild a church as a monument to his two dead sons. The man's trolley has definitely slipped his tracks.
I guess I miss Eli Wallach from the original. I found Fernandez's character to be just too off the mark for me. I can't believe his own men are standing for what he wants.
Just as Steve McQueen came from western television so does his replacement Robert Fuller, fresh from the Laramie series. Fuller is competent enough, but does not have McQueen's charisma by a stretch. Too bad they couldn't get Steve McQueen to repeat his role.
The other four of the new Seven are Jordan Christopher, Claude Akins, Warren Oates, and Rudolfo Acosta. All of them fill roles that we've come to expect of them. Julian Mateos takes Horst Bucholtz's part, a more mature Chico to be sure.
You could not have done this film without that wonderful Elmer Bernstein theme again. What I can't understand is why his score was nominated again as there was nothing original in it.
Return of the Seven is a decent enough remake, but it ain't a patch on the original.