Starring: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, and Peter Sarsgaard Directed by: Antoine Fuqua Written by: Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto Remakes are funny things. They can go either way. On one hand, they can be like last year's Mad Max: Fury Road, a film that critics and audiences adore; a film that will live on as a cinematic masterpiece. Remakes can also go in the direction of this year's rendition of Ben-Hur , one that critics and audiences will likely forget. The Magnificent Seven some might say is an unnecessary remake. It's a remake of an original that's based on another film, Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic, Seven Samurai, in which seven samurai soldiers are hired by a town to keep them safe from raiding bandits. This time, there are no raiding bandits, and there are not seven sword-wielding soldiers. This time, it's a western