Wild Wild West

It's that time of year. The time when Hollywood trots out it's worst of the summer. You know the drill. There's a "Godzilla" every year, somebody has to be it. "Wild Wild West" clenches the title hands down this summer, and we still have eight weeks to go!

The Will Smith phenomenon has now entered it's third phase: overwhelming ego project. Teaming with his "Men In Black" director Barry Sonnenfeld, Smith has finally teetered over the edge and released an outright mess. A film that will hang in the halls of all time bad event flicks. Should we blame Smith? I think so. "Men In Black" and "Independence Day" were gigantic hits, they even call the 4th of July "Big Willie Weekend" due to these successes. I submit that these films were hits due to the films themselves, the writing, acting, directing, and not just because of Smith. "West" is finally the film that rests on Smith's comedic shoulders alone. The truth shines through clearly. Not everything Will Smith does is funny.

Based in the television show running from 1965-1970, the simple plot tells the tale of a Civil War era federal marshal James West (Smith), who must team up with a weapons expert (Kevin Kline, at his most painfully unfunny) to thwart the evil plans of the villain, and legless, Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh). Along for the ride is a giant mechanical tarantula, President Grant, and the stunning, gorgeous, lovely, and just plain old hot Salma Hayek. The plot is just a simple excuse to push the characters through endless scenes that give birth to no laughs at all. Scenes that make the audience gringe with fear, as if something wrong is with them. Fear not my good people, these are professionals up on screen, and they blew it.

The screenplay, credited to FOUR writers, has the damnedest time to make any of the jokes funny. You would not believe just how far the cast goes to make this limp material work. It's embarrassing to watch, and even more embarrassing for the actors. There is not one funny moment in the film, not even a courtesy laugh for the attempt. Dead silence. I also disapprove of the attempt to squeeze racial jokes into the mix. Yes, Will Smith is African-American, but do we need to call attention to it every five minutes? The movie would've been better served had it left the race issue alone and just played up the potential fun of the concept.

Will Smith is simply miscast as the hero. He's an amiable actor who's proven himself with stronger material. This film clearly shows just how paper thin the Smith charm can be. While Kevin Kline tries but fails as well, it's really Hayek's role that's a mystery. She's barely in the film, and when her character is explained, you come to realize that she's not apart of the story at all. Hayek has always been a fun performer with winning personality. All this movie asks of her is to be the butt (literally) of a few jokes and keep the cleavage coming. A shameful waste of talent.

Director Sonnenfeld has also been at the helm of better pictures ("Get Shorty"), but for some reason I have yet to see a truly great film directed by him. There always seems to be a spark missing from the action, like a better, funnier film was in there somewhere but he can't find it. Relying in great amounts on special effects and the considerable use of easy-to-spot green screen shots, the typical Sonnenfeld camera work is either buried under all the mayhem or just not inventive when the attempt is actually made. This is a very top-heavy production with little chance to breathe. But Sonnenfeld made this choice, he must be held accountable for it.

The movie has been through many edits, and this shows with wildly out of tune continuity and many unexplained plot twists. Also grating on the brain is Elmer Bernstein's annoying and featherweight musical score. While we have Warner Brothers shamefully trotting out it's "We pray it's as big as the 'Men In Black'" Will Smith rap tune, Bernstein provides a flat score that serves no purpose to enliven the film. The cinematography is also without color, and the catering probably sucked too.

"Wild Wild West" is the product of zero imagination. A lifeless summer film that seems to stick out even more in this unusually good movie season. I am always wary of comic westerns, and this film seals that envelope. If this is what 160 million buys you? I'll take the 3 million "South Park" any day.------------ 0

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.

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.

`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.

I like Will Smith and his movies. I enjoyed ENEMY OF THE STATE, INDEPENDENCE DAY and even MEN IN BLACK. So I watched WILD WILD WEST for tradition's sake, I guess you can say. It was 1999's July 4 Will Smith hit. I am positive that this is the worst I have ever seen Will Smith in. I tried to enjoy this movie, and at parts I did, but most of it was lame and not very enjoyable, I'm sorry to say.

Dr. Arliss Loveless, (Kenneth Branagh) a confederate rich bad guy is trying to sell parts of the USA to the highest bidding countries, using his giant machines of destruction (walking mechanicals spiders and stuff) to take hostage of President Ulysses S. Grant (Kevin Kline). The two best agents the U.S. Government has, James West (Will Smith) and Artemus Gordon (also Kevin Kline) are sent to stop Loveless and save the president, as well as the country. West also has a personal score to settle with Loveless, since he was responsible for the death of his parents. The beautiful Rita Escobar (Salma Hayek) tags along to try and save her father, who is also being held hostage by Loveless. She attracts the eye of Gordan and West.

The acting jobs in this are fair, but the writing spoils it. The gorgeous Salma Hayek is underplayed, and her character is pretty much pointless except to have a good-looking girl in the movie. Both Will Smith and Kevin Kline do fairly good jobs acting, but the characters are too boring to enjoy. I'm not sure if Kenneth Branagh or the writing is responsible for the incredible stupid and annoying Dr. Loveless.

This movie is very similar to Men in Black, only less modern and on a smaller scale. (save the country, not the planet) Another big difference between the two was that Men in Black was more fun, cooler, and had better characters, villains and gadgets (not to mention Tommy Lee Jones). If you are in the movie for a Will Smith movie, go rent ENEMY OF THE STATE. If you're in the movie for a lighter Will Smith movie, go rent MEN IN BLACK. I'd try to avoid WILD WILD WEST, but give it a try if you like.