I did not expect Seven Samurai to be so fun

Of course I expected it to be the masterpiece people hail it as, but I always have a thing where if I’m watching a movie considered the best ever made, I predict it’ll fall either into “artistic showcase/snobbiness” or “people talking/crying in a room for God knows how long.” A lot of films I’ve seen and some that I’ve loved fall into one of these two categories. This movie, however, feels like a time bomb: the first half is slowly ticking down to the explosion of violence in the second. It also helps that nobody is boring and the pacing is elite. They somehow made a near 3 1/2 hour movie feel like 2 1/2 hours and still managed to flesh everyone out, which is an achievement I have never seen before. I didn’t expect the movie to also have a strong sense of humor with its banter and Toshiro Mifune acting like a goofball for most of it (of course when the time comes for him to have dramatic moments he nails it like his rant about samurai and when he held the baby). *Seven Samurai* is absolutely worth the hype and the worst part about it is I’ll never see it for the first time again