Blu-Ray Review: ‘RETURN OF THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN’

The Magnificent Seven is often heralded as one of the greatest westerns ever made.  Great acting, memorable characters, and a striking score, all elevate The Magnificent Seven into more than your standard b-movie shoot-em-up western.  Unfortunately for Burt Kennedy’s 1966 sequel, it has only one of these three traits working to keep this horse riding high.  Given all that is working against it, Return of the Magnificent Seven turns out a little better than expected, even if the Blu-ray doesn’t have much faith in the film.

THE MOVIE

The sequel begins much in the same way as the original.  In fact, the film is set in the same village that was first mistreated in the original.  A megalomaniac bent on revenge rides with a group of bandits into the village abducting all of the men and leaving behind the women and children.  Chico (Originally played by Horst Buchholz and now replaced by Julian Mateos) is one of the men captured, leaving his wife Petra to seek out our memorable anti-hero from the original: Chris Adams (Yul Brynner).  Once again, Chris, with the help of Vin (Steve McQueen is also now replaced by Robert Fuller), seeks out guns-for-hire to find the missing villagers.

If it seems I breezed through the plot synopsis, it is because there isn’t really that much more to it.  This is in no way a fault to Larry Cohen’s tight script (yes . . . that Larry Cohen who gave us It’s Alive and The Stuff).  In fact, the script is actually quite good even if it borrows its structure from the previous film.  As fans of the original will attest, Return’s main problem is that it goes down the same dusty trail as the original.  The only main difference is the now shortened run-time (a breezy 95 min) and the unfortunate lack of star-power in the leads.  For me, this is the biggest misstep in what could have been a memorable action flick.  Steve McQueen, Charles Bronson, Robert Vaughn, James Coburn, and Eli Wallach all made a lasting impression in the original Seven.  As to be expected, their sub-par replacements in this second entry don’t hold a candle to those memorable tough-guys.  Warren Oates (The Wild Bunch, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia) does his best giving us a funny womanizing cowboy.  However, he’s the only one of the boring bunch that makes an impression.  Aside from the return of Elmer Bernstein’s iconic score and Yul Brynner as the heroic man in black, Paul Vogel’s cinematography is the prize-winning horse in this film.  His camera in this film is much more fluid than the more stagnant photographic like cinematography found in the first film.  There are many tracking and dolly shots that breathe life into the scenes between the shoot-outs.  Which, I must say, the final shoot-out almost manages to beat out the original with its explosive action.

PRESENTATION

The video presentation is shown in 2.35: 1 and 1080p.  The film’s first half includes a lot of darker sequences that don’t seem to really showcase the HD presentation properly.  It looks as if the people behind the restoration didn’t take the time to bring some of the details in these sequences out and visible.  Thankfully the last half of the film mainly takes place in the bright dusty landscape.  This sepia-tone colored imagery is beautiful to look at given the age of the film and the quality of the film stock.

The audio is in 5.1 DTS Master Sound.  Even with this added bonus, the sound still doesn’t have the fullness like the Blu-ray of the first film had.  Elmer Bernstein’s score doesn’t have the lush richness, the dialogue is fairly low, and the explosions sound muddy.  In the end, this is an obvious downfall of this disc.

The final nail in the coffin for this disc is the lack of extra material.  One trailer is all that you will be given with this package.  Not to compare it once again to The Magnificent Seven Blu-ray, but that disc had a commentary, featurettes, and trailers.  This is extremely disappointing in comparison.

OVERALL

Many fans of the original and clearly MGM, have a lack of faith in Burt Kennedy’s inferior sequel.  When comparing it to the original, Return is nothing but a fun western shoot-em-up next to what is often called a western classic.  The film’s lack of a McQueen or Coburn is only punctuated by its cookie-cutter structure.  Thankfully, Academy Award winner Paul Vogel’s (won for Battleground) camera work and Kennedy’s direction of the large-scale final shoot-out make this a film more watchable than the reputation that is often bestowed on the film.  If you can look past the sub-par Blu-ray package, Return shows that you can make a good looking western even if its doomed for failure from the beginning.