The cinematography is excellent, the scenery is fantastic (a little biased here since some of it was shot here in New Mexico) and the action is paced incredibly well.
The actors were superb and it blended the old spaghetti westerns with modern Hollywood action. Very, very satisfying!
I admit, I wasn't expecting much from Chris Pratt, he just seemed too comic an actor but I was surprised, they wrote him well as a bit of a jokester but with enough depth to avoid ridiculousness. Denzel Washington was spectacular in his role, intense but not unfeeling; sympathetic but not pitiable. Vincent D'Onofrio was a revelation. I've loved him since I saw him as a 'god' in Adventures in Babysitting and this role showed his range.
Ethan Hawke was fabulous. I've seen several of his films and admired his ability but I have since begun to respect him even more after reading his newest book Indeh. I didn't realize I'd seen several of Byung-hun Lee's movies until I check IMDb which explained why he looked so familiar. His character here was a good contrast with Hawke's and they complemented each other very well.
Manuel Garcia-Rulfo was both charming and unmannered; attractive and oddly repulsive (mainly while eating) which made him fascinating to watch. I adored Martin Sensmeier's taciturn character especially because he's a dead-ringer for one of my good friends (celebrity look alikes are fun to find!).
Peter Sarsgaard played the bad guy well, never over-done. And Haley Bennett was both strong and sensitive exhibiting an authentic blend of what a woman of that time may have felt over the sequence of events. And she did her best to overcome the classic Hollywood trope of having everyone else dressed accurately in period except for her swooping bodice which would have relegated her to the ranks of the saloon girls in the real world.
As I said, the sweeping landscapes were fantastic, they captured the wild beauty of New Mexico and, as an adopted local to the state, I appreciated it. The music was a great accompaniment with an energetic and majestic score.
All-in-all this was a wonderful story of good vs. evil, and how heroism can rise in even the most unlikely of individuals.
I'll stop fangirling now; it's just that it was such a great movie. And now I have to re-watch the original; it's just been a few decades.
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