Wild Wild West Review
by Eugene Novikov (lordeugene_98 AT yahoo DOT com)July 3rd, 1999
Wild Wild West (1999)
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov
http://www.ultimate-movie.com
Member: Online Film Critics Society
** out of four
"Not every situation requires your patented approach of shoot first, shoot later, shoot some more and then when everybody's dead try to ask a question or two."
Starring Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Salma Hayek, Kenneth Branagh. Rated PG-13.
Will Smith owns the July 4th weekend. The last two summers, a box-office smash has been released on the July 4th weekend and each of them has starred Will Smith. Those blockbusters were, of course, Independence Day and Men In Black. After both of them more than tripled their respective budgets ($75 million for ID4 and $90 million for MIB), Warner Bros. decided to raise the stakes this year with Wild Wild West. The studio poured $175 million dollars into the project, making it the second most expensive film of all time.
This exuberant action-comedy romp is the second in a couple of dubious remakes that have been thrown our way this year (the first, a special- effects extravaganza called The Mummy was supposedly a remake of a 1932 movie starring Boris Karloff, but the two have nothing in common beyond the fact that they are about mummies). It is a remake of an old tv show of the same name, but a lot has changed. Jim West (played by Will Smith as opposed to Robert Conrad) is a secret service agent working for President Ulysses S. Grant. He is paired with Artemis Gordon (Kevin Kline, funny by just showing up), a US Marshal, master of disguise and maker of wacky crime-fighting gizmos that would make Inspector Gadget proud. Together they must stop Dr. Loveless (Kenneth Branagh, a delight), a legless Confederate war general with a hairbrained scheme to take over the US government.
Wild Wild West also stars Salma Hayek as Rita Escobar, a role that exists for the sole purpose of attracting horny teenagers. Hayek (From Dusk Till Dawn, Fools Rush In) must have been desperate for work to accept this thankless role. Kline and Branagh, on the other hand have plenty to flaunt in this movie. As the villain, Branagh takes a break from Shakespeare and employs a weird accent to play Dr. Loveless with occasionally hilarious gusto, and he seems to be having the time of his life. Kline, in a dual role (he also puts on a fake beard and mustache to play the President), brings to Artemis Gordon an entertaining attitude, sparing what might have been an irritating character. Unfortunately Will Smith, the star of the show, is just plain annoying, cocky and unlikeable.
Director Barry Sonnenfeld (Addams Family Values, Men in Black) never lets his movie fully become a parody, although it often heads in that direction. As such, however, Wild Wild West is wretchedly inconsistent; often amusing but also frequently tedious. For every gag that entertains there are two that choke. For every scene with at least a trace of excitement, two more are yawn-worthy. Admittedly, parts of Wild, Wild West are fun (mostly those with Branagh), but overwhelmingly the film fails to reach the level of suspense and humor necessary for it to really work as an action-comedy.
By the time the much-lauded giant mechanical tarantula shows up it is clear that this film is out of its element. If there is such a thing as overbudgeting, this is it, folks. There is no room for eye-popping special effects here. Wild, Wild West wants to thrive on camp (as well as what is often referred to as "cheesiness"), but it's hard to be campy with a 175 million dollar budget. A director would have to make sure the film is discreet, and discreet Wild, Wild West is not.
Will Smith is a terrific actor, but here we never warm up to him or his character. His Jim West is a creep, not the admirable role-model that a hero of this movie should have been. It's a real problem when the protagonist is a jerk because the burden falls on the supporting characters who then have to do a spectacular job to make up for the protagonist's lack of potency. Branagh and Kline are capable of doing just that, and would have succeeded brilliantly were this a better movie. But there isn't enough spark in the proceedings for the two veterans to really blow are minds, although their performances are as terrific as the movie permits them to be.
Wild Wild West will still be a huge draw and will do Warner Bros. proud. But frankly, it's a letdown; not necessarily because it isn't consistently funny or consistently exciting (I wasn't expecting a masterpiece) but because I wasn't prepared to see such inanity from Will Smith.
©1999 Eugene Novikov‰
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