RETURN OF THE SEVEN (1966) *1/2 Yul Brynner apparently refused to make this film if Steve McQueen was in any way involved. McQueen took a look at the script and said something like it's too dumb for me but perfect for Yul. As you might expect, Steve McQueen was closer to right. Not that I feel all that bad about it, The Magnificent Seven never did for me what it apparently does for a lot of people anyway. In fact, much has been made about how inferior this is-and it is not as good-but the reality is that they tried to make damn near the same movie, just with not as great actors. Yul is a reasonably tough guy but not enough so to entirely catch your interest, and Claude Akins is best of the rest. They're good, and no one is terrible, but it never gets close to that ensemble of individuals that the first one did. So it just kind of builds and you know they're just going to get to a big shoot-out anyway and you've read better philosophy in comic books and it's not the most captivating Mexican travel guide. I guess the best part is that they demonstrate the strangely admirable (in that lying bastard sort of way) motivations of the bad guys pretty well, which gives you a better sense of re-entry once you leave the theater. Yes, even Richard Nixon has got soul.
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