Movie Review: A ‘Magnificent’ redo that wasn’t really needed

The original 1960 Western — inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s Japanese classic “Seven Samurai” — still holds up beautifully, but after three sequels and a TV series that was a modest success for CBS over a couple of seasons, it’s not hard to understand why a studio would return to one of its most famous properties. BBC America shows the most recent version Sunday, March 3.

The story basically stays the same: A town is besieged by a villain (portrayed in this case by Peter Sarsgaard, “Garden State,” 2004) and his followers, and the citizens realize they’ll have to hire defenders. Haley Bennett (“The Girl on the Train,” 2016) plays the woman who spearheads the deal.

First up for the job is a bounty hunter played by Denzel Washington, reunited here with director Antoine Fuqua, who led him to an Oscar in 2001’s “Training Day” (and also worked with him on the “Equalizer” movies). Another collaborator from that film, Ethan Hawke, plays one of the other six — with the rest made up of the likes of Chris Pratt (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” 2014) and Vincent D’Onofrio (“Godfather of Harlem”), each character possessing certain skills that are effective in battle.

And about that battle: You just know a big showdown is coming, and while it’s violent enough, it stayed within the constraints of the picture’s PG-13 rating. Those rules were even tighter for movies in 1960, and if director John Sturges could pull it off then, Fuqua certainly can here.