Worth Fighting For | Se7en (2024 IMAX Re-release) Movie Review
Fincher’s modern classic has never looked better 🤩
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I’ve been seeing the value more and more in these kinds of theatre events. I missed Interstellar’s 10th Anniversary IMAX re-release, and I’ve been kicking myself ever since. I couldn’t believe my good fortune when I saw Seven, the David Fincher classic, being shown in IMAX.
I’ve probably seen Seven a dozen times before, but on the enormous IMAX screen, I saw all kinds of things for the first time, not all of them strictly on the screen.
One thing I’d never noticed before is how antipathetic everyone in the department is towards questions and the people who ask them. The uniformed officer at the first crime scene begins the trend, and R. Lee Ermey also expresses disdain at Morgan Freeman’s Somerset, derisively alluding to his “big brain” theories, specifically what a pain in his ass they are.
By the time Richard Roundtree appears in person as the District Attorney and explicitly refers to not asking the wrong questions or bad questions or going down any rabbit holes, I realized maybe for the first time that every single person in Somerset’s organization is leaning on him not to ask questions.
That’s Detective Somerset. Stop asking questions, Detective Somerset.
This script is bulletproof.
Famously, it was almost not to be, with Andrew Kevin Walker forced to pen 12 additional scripts to satisfy Penta Films, only to have Fincher miraculously (one wonders whether a human hand intervened somehow) sent the original script, which he loved and fought for.
Production was rushed to avoid attention and oversight from the studios. Probably a wise move, given the ending. What an ending.
Let it be a lesson to us that it took the conspiring of a handful of people, one of them the director of the film, and a bunch of maneuvering for this to even ever see the light of day, with poor Tracy’s head in that box.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of this film is how thoroughly Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman — arguably two of the most recognizable faces in the world — disappear into the roles of David Mills and William Somerset. When I think back to this film, I never think of the characters as ‘Brad Pitt’ or ‘Morgan Freeman,’ but as Mills and Somerset.
I, of course, didn’t pay for a ticket (as an AMC employee, I see movies for free), but I think that this experience was impactful and unique enough that it would be worth whatever people are having to pay.
So many experiences at the movie theatre are not special. I knew going in that Seven was going to be special (because it’s one of the best action/thriller films ever made), and I was not disappointed.
The various, different environs and settings of the film became more stimulating and immersive in IMAX. The grime felt grimier, the omnipresent rain felt wetter, the library more classical, the crime scenes more putrid and visceral.
In the hands of Fincher, what could be a confusing and counterproductive mess is a haunting and thrilling mélange that coheres magnificently.
Another thing I noticed for the first time was how Somerset’s annoying, dogged curiosity (finding Doe’s address based on the public library’s lending list) forces John Doe to deviate from his plan. The Doe plan is predicated on the incuriosity and apathy we see exhibited by every member of the police force and criminal justice system that isn’t either Somerset or Mills.
Give it a rest with your neverending questions, Somerset.
One element of the film that has received praise in the past is the set design, and it has never looked better than in IMAX.
Where another film’s laziness might get exposed on a screen this large, the loving, meticulous work of designers Clive Piercy and John Sabel is finally getting the magnification it deserves. There’s still not nearly enough time to read much of anything, but the mind captures an impression of the work, and it reads as authentic and real.
If it isn’t clear from my BlueSky posts, this was a thrill ride. There may not be many films that more deserved or merited an IMAX re-release, and this did not disappoint.
The scale of the film is pretty epic, after all. John Doe thinks he’s changing the world, and an entire (unnamed, a brilliant touch) city is in an uproar, at the very least. And I’ve never truly appreciated what a rush some of the more action-y, theatrical scenes are, having never seen Seven in theatres at all, much less in IMAX.
The bench is a murderer’s row of hard-hitters, like Leland Orser as ‘crazed massage parlor man,’ the character who is forced at gunpoint to rape a woman to death with a bladed strap-on.
I would argue that there is no way to film and show that scene that is more effective than — or even remotely as effective as — Orser in a blanket, being interrogated, and just absolutely freaking out (as you would).
Seven hits hard. It always has. It hit so hard, it nearly didn’t get made, or nearly got made horribly, because the story is so grim.
This is the proposed alternate ending that the studio was originally happy with (or at least pushing) before Fincher saw the wrong script and refused to compromise:
Mills and Somerset confront John Doe — who has captured Tracy — in a burning or burned-out church. Doe kills Mills, Somerset kills Doe and pregnant Tracy moves out of the city. There is a head in a box, but it’s Mills’ dog’s head.
Boo.
Occasionally, artistic integrity and vision win, and when they do, I think we owe it to ourselves to celebrate them and reward them. Seven in IMAX was one of the most satisfying, thrilling theatre experiences I’ve had in years.
