Wild Wild West

The opening credits of this film were highly entertaining, and the closing credits featuring Will's WWW rap was fun as well. Everything in between was a pure, unadulterated, steaming pile of crud! I sat and marveled at the drek that was being spewed out on the screen from this supposedly Summer Blockbuster movie and was totally stupefied. I've seen bad movies before, and I've certainly seen my share of big-budget, special-effects money machines - but none was as poorly conceived as this. What makes it even more amazing is that we had actors with at least a proven track record of success. We had a director (Barry Sonnenfeld) who has managed to put together his share of successful movies. And if this weren't enough, there was a pant load of big explosions and digital effects! So what went wrong?

The script, the script, the script. It boggles my mind that this screenplay actually made it to production. The dialogue was atrocious. The attempts at humor were pathetic. The characters had about as much depth as the screen they were being projected on. Hayek's character was completely pointless, and had less than no reason to be there. The repeated exchange of racial/disabled insults between the black Jim West and the legless Dr. Loveless was shameful. It seemed that about every twenty minutes Kline's character launched into a diatribe reiterating the plot, and articulating what they were doing and why. I can only assume this was intended for the audience members who had just woken up and needed to get caught up with the "action."

My biggest regret in seeing this film is that wish I could have warned you earlier not to see it. I'm sure there are several movie fans out there right now who unwittingly fell victim to this movie, and are at this moment still lying in bed with the covers pulled over their heads, swearing they'll never go to the theater again as long as they live. Don't go see this movie, don't let your kids see this movie, don't even recommend it to people you truly despise. If, on the other hand, you have a morbid fascination with the continuing devolution of Hollywood and aren't afraid to face definitive evidence that our culture is moments away from claiming creative bankruptcy, this one is a must see.

I think this movie is, beyond anything, pure entertainment. I don't think for a moment that this is intended to be a historically-accurate archive of what happened during the life of President Truman. I think it was an idea based on something that could have happened, and then explored upon. It's meant to be entertaining with a smidge of accuracy. If I were grading this purely on accuracy or historic factor, I'd grade it lower but I'm grading it as entertainment. Sure there are some cheesy parts, but it's funny, it's silly, it's somewhat kind of historical, and that's good enough for me. It's entertaining.

Back in the 60s, The Wild, Wild West, staring Robert Conrad and Russ Martin was one of the best shows of it's time, a interesting mixture of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Gadget Spy films, and light hearted satire. A favorite of mine, I've long enjoyed the show. So naturally, I was looking forward to the big screen adaption, even though it did star Will Smith (Sorry, Will, but you're no Robert Conrad.)

The movie had all the ingredients needed to make a good film: An excellent cast (Kevin Klein, Ken Branaugh, Selma Hayek, even Smith,) an excellent, proven director in Barry Sonnefeld, and a proven genre... Rather, it had all the ingredients that it needed except one... It had the worst script possible.

I've always been wary of any project that was written by committee, and this film is one project that proves why. The excellent cast, crew, and effects of this film were wasted on one of the worst screenplays I've ever seen. The clever (if pulp inspired) stories of the original series are replaced by tepid attempts at comedy which even Smith, who normally is very funny, can't pull off. Kenneth Branaugh succeeds at nothing other than managing to eat the scenery, unable to do anything else, since his lines are so bad. Klein is saddled with the role of Smith's straight man, something that he's just too damn funny to be. As for the effects, like I said, they were spectacular, but the problem is that they seem to be the 'be all and end all' of the movie, instead of working for the story (such as there was in this case.) The simple fact is that they overpower the film.

I guess, if you are a die hard Will Smith fan who has never seen the original series, you might like this one. But for fans of the old series, avoid it, and watch reruns, or else one of the two other shows in the genre, 'Legend' or 'The Adventures of Brisco County Junior.'

The fun old TV series becomes a tired series of special-effects scenes. Will Smith tries, but is miscast and utterly unbelievable. (And I'm sorry, but having an African-American as a "top government agent" four years after the end of the Civil War simply cannot be made believable, despite valiant attempts to try.) Kevin Kline, a fine actor, does what he can as Artemus Gordon, but seems to be recapitulating his "In and Out" persona (Ross Martin was never that prissy.) Kenneth Branagh, as the villain, plays it so far over the top you can't even see the top from where he his. Salma Hayek is undeniably lovely, but is wasted (she's basically an afterthought). Special effects are good, plot is stupid, script is awful. As a fan of the old series, I was very disappointed.

`Wild Wild West' joins an increasingly long list of big bloated blockbusters, movies made for no possible reason beyond grabbing a quick summer buck yet which, ironically, by their very cynical and slapdash nature, utterly fail to connect with even the least demanding of audiences. The result is a multi-multi-million dollar debacle that leaves studios searching for answers and audiences shell-shocked into seeking out their entertainment along the more audacious pathway of off-Hollywood, independent filmmaking – the single positive outcome of these dull, empty enterprises.

`Wild Wild West,' like so many films before it, looks to the relics of television's bygone era for inspiration – as sad a comment as any on the dismal state of current movie creativity. As one not familiar with the original series, I cannot say what justice, or lack of justice, this homage does to its source. What is evident, judging from the results on screen, is that `Wild Wild West' is, as with most current blockbusters, top-heavy with special effects and as weak in the nether limbs as its legless villain. Straight Westerns being hopelessly out of fashion, especially for a special effects-driven summertime extravaganza, the filmmakers obviously felt that what was needed was a tongue-in-cheek approach to the material, resulting in a bizarre, but completely unfunny amalgam of fantasy and science-fiction gilded onto a Western format. The disparate styles simply fight against each other, leaving no one in the audience - neither Western nor science-fiction fans - satisfied.

The alleged plot involves the attempts by James West (Will Smith) and Artemis Gordon (Kevin Kline) to foil an evil Confederate inventor's plan to kidnap all the world's most brilliant scientists and, ultimately, terrorize the Union and President Grant into submission. This he attempts to do by creating a giant mechanized spider which is, obviously, a last ditch, desperate attempt on the part of the filmmakers to fulfill the seemingly insatiable demands of the modern audience to be dazzled by impressive special effects, no matter how inappropriate they appear in context. Here, though, the miscalculation is fatal because even the audience is wise enough to know when it is being had. Kline and Smith never achieve a palpable rapport despite the usual abundance of lame wise cracks and sarcastic asides designed to make them `hip' and `trendy' – two qualities incongruous to the setting, which again shows the lack of real commitment to the spirit of the project. There is exactly one clever moment in the film – an astonishingly creative homage to the old RCA logo – that hints at what might have been had the moviemakers been willing to really let loose their anarchic imaginations and aimed for something truly sophisticated rather than simply pasting together a series of confused, poorly written blackout sketches.

Incidentally, even some of the expensive special effects come across as surprisingly crude, especially many of the shots utilizing rear-screen projection. Hence, this film strikes out even in the one ballpark in which it might have stood a chance of emerging victorious.