Denzel Washington's Magnificent Seven is a sight better than most westerns in most important ways, but it labors under the same handicaps that bothered the old Yul Brynner version lo these many years ago. Both are eventually based on the still-older Japanese movie Seven Samurai, and the samurai legend of Japan is pretty incompatible with the American western.
The historical samurai were comparable to England's knights of King Arthur's round table, chivalric figures who had taken oaths to their earthly lords, but also to a certain code of behavior that involved helping the downtrodden.
The western hero was a Lone Ranger, a Man With No Name. He might have a faithful companion like Tonto or an old grizzled coot like Gabby Hayes or Fuzzy Knight, but they were two against the world and made their own code with blazing six-guns. They were famous town tamers, but they represented individualism in its purest form and seldom tried to organize anybody else; they served society and civilization, but never joined them.
The Magnificent Seven eventually gives a personal motive to Denzel Washington, but the motives of the other heroes are murky indeed, and lack of clear motivation obscures characterization and promotes stereotypes, which in turn makes everything seem formulaic.
Aside from that, The Magnificent Seven provides what westerns do: that will be enough for most movie audiences, largely even for me.
