The two “Magnificent Seven” films are only similar in terms of the basic plot: Seven gunslingers are hired to help protect a town and its people from being terrorized and pillaged by a greedy villain. Now I can appreciate that most filmmakers consider remakes to be an opportunity to crank out an homage to the original but I’m far more appreciative of Antoine Fuqua’s decision to aim straight down the barrel and revision a story that’s removed itself of the burden of being self-referential.

Everything in this film feels like it was made in the heyday of westerns which is the right way to go in this instance. Even James Horner’s score, his last before his untimely death, has just enough taken from Elmer Bernstein’s iconic theme so that the film sounds familiar but not at all like a cheap copy. (It is worth noting, however, that nothing Horner has ever done has sounded cheap. RIP Sir.) The rest of the film follows that same formula of “make something that could’ve stood next to the original, not replace it” which obviously speaks to the level of respect Fuqua has for the genre as whole.

The cast is entertaining and convincing, which is impressive considering that this is the first foray into the Old West for most of them. Denzel Washington stars in his very first Western like he was born to it. As the bounty hunter Sam Chisholm, Washington is the leader of his pack of deadly misfits and it’s his respect and/or admiration for the rest of the Seven that allows this action film to actually take the time to develop its characters before it gets to its bullet-riddled finale.

The familiar faces in the cast are used effectively, using their individual strengths in their usual ways but pushed just a bit beyond the way we’re used to seeing them. Chris Pratt plays Josh Faraday, a cavalier and charming gambler that’s shockingly pretty useful in a gunfight. Not bad at all for Pratt who usually plays an adorkable hero who stumbles into success. Ethan Hawke is still brooding but as Goodnight Robichheaux he actually spends a good amount of time posturing in order to hide the trauma from his past. And it actually took me a minute to recognize a very scruffy Byung-Hun Lee since literally every other movie I’ve ever seen him in has him clean-shaven and in a shiny suit. Vincent D’Onfrio was visually recognizable but not aurally; his character has a high-pitched voice that’s played to comedic affect but it’s Vincent D’Onfrio so he’s playing a character that’s both intimidating and gentle, yet again.

The two relative newcomers, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Martin Sensmeier, carve their own places into this film so that it really does feel like the Magnificent Seven instead of the Magnificent Five and Their Two Friends. Garcia-Rulfo plays a Mexican outlaw with enough charm to rival Pratt and that is no small accomplishment. Sensmeier as the Comanche warrior Red Harvest speaks less than fifty words in total, only three of those words are in English, and he still manages to be a commanding presence on a screen shared with Denzel Washington.

All Seven are accounted for and necessary.

I predict Magnificent Seven will be a timeless film; not because of its ability to transcend the genre (which it doesn’t), but because it decided that the Western didn’t need to be modernized but just done well.

My Grandpa, Antonio Sanchez Sr., was obsessed with westerns. Huge chunks of his days were dedicated to “Gunsmoke”, “Bonanza” and whatever else happened to be playing on The Western Channel. I was never a superfan like Grandpa but I’ve been a student of westerns for so long that I’m able to identify the signatures of the genre: the gun-twirling, the quickdraw duels, throwing bad guys through a Main Street window and after evil has been vanquished, the good guys ride off into the sunset.

I enjoyed “Magnificent Seven” for taking ALL of those old cliched tropes and executing them with enough sincerity that they come off as classic rather than overdone.

Have we seen all of this before? Yes. Yes, we have. Has it been so long that they seem novel in a “Hey, I remember this! Why did we ever stop doing this?” sort of way? Yes. Yes they do.