Wild Wild West (1999, DVD)

Why do actors who are clearly capable of better stuff end up in movies like this? I suspect that they think that their great screen presence will make up for errors in casting, pacing ,editing ,directing and story to make up the difference. Riding high on their fame, they believe they are invincible. Not so, as witness the example of Will Smith.

Actually, there are a couple of others in this film who might want to bring an eraser to the next review of their resume. They include Kevin Kline, and Kenneth Branagh, both of whom are much better that this sorry mess called The Wild Wild West. Toss in Todd Levine and Salma Hayek, although Ms. Hayek acquits herself nicely, and at very least LOOKS good.

It took me several hours to find this in the pile of VHS tapes I no longer ever wanted to see. Yes it was THAT bad. I have not watched it since it came out on video in 1999, and I won t hopefully, ever have to watch it again. I repeat, it is indeed THAT bad.

A comedy, even one such as this as a remake from the TV series Wild Wild West , any comedy depends on timing. The right words at the right time, the right fall at the right moment, and the right flow to the action. This movie has none of the above. Kline usually has pretty good timing, and Smith has had better moments, but together they are simply horrendous. Either they didn t like each other much, or one of them didn t give a rip.


The dialog falls flat because of its delivery. There were some funny lines. Branagh is an evil character, the villain of the piece, and has been overwritten to the point that any character he might have had disappears behind his Snidely- Whiplash- come -lately persona. It was a pretty sorry Southern Accent as well. The only person in the entire movie that has a definite character (although a poor place in the plot) is the girl.


This movie seems to have promise in the first few minutes, at least once the naked Will gets out of the water tower. It seemed pretty contrived, and if there was any chemistry between Smith and his first partner in the Water tower, I failed to see it. In fact, I failed to see any chemistry between Smith and any other character.

The music throughout the movie , by Elmer Bernstein, showed nothing at all, not enhancing the action in the slightest. The best music on the entire tape are the two music videos tacked on the end, and both of those were better than the movie by far.

The TV series Wild Wild West was one of my favorites during its run, and I watched re-runs for years. I liked the little fanciful subplots of secret agents set in the American West. Maybe the real truth is that a half-hour television show cannot be expanded to a full length motion picture without getting boring, and that movies about secret agents in any era just are not that interesting to the changing world we live in now.

Barry Sonnenfield started as a camera man, and is credited for wielding the wacky cam for the Coen brothers. His Men in Black was a fun movie, and seems to me in retrospect to be successful mainly because it was fast moving and visually interesting. Although I think Wild Wild West was filmed competently, there is little sense of excitement in the action, which if nothing else, could have used a competent choreographer.


Sonnenfield has done better movies, at least in MIB, and needs to take his share of the rap for this. Someone needed to direct the acting. Hollywood hyped this movie in a huge way, but the public was not fooled. What they wanted was some action packed fun, and what they got was Kevin Kline in drag, and a ratty imitation of Blazing Saddles. Sonnenberg is no Mel Brooks. Smith is cool at times, but just doesn t work in this role, and Kline is no Gene Wilder, nor even the inventive side kick of Conrad in the series. Recommendation? Read the script next time.

The best part of this movie are the inventions, the machines constructed by the mad scientist and villain Dr. Loveless, and the scientist/Marshall Artemus Gordon. But they are not enough to save this movie.

THE PLOT

Jim West, US Marshall, is in pursuit of General Bloodbath McGrath, who is credited with slaughtering his whole family. Artemus Gordon too is in pursuit of McGrath, because he has been stealing scientists, and spiriting them away for some evil ends. Gordon is undercover as a dance hall girl.

They both come together at the request of President Grant, who incidentally is a dead ringer for Gordon. They are given the quest of finding those scientists.

They track McGrath to a party given for The New South and foreign dignitaries by a man presumed dead, Dr. Arliss Lovelace. He is in a wheelchair, having lost his legs (among other things) in the war. He is clearly a bigger evil than a disgruntled Southerner.

The big showdown is to be in Utah, where Grant is headed to dedicate a railroad. The mission of the now-paired US Marshals is to stop the evil ego-maniac. In the process, they pick up a beautiful dance-hall girl, Rita, who is on a quest for her father, a scientist taken by Loveless.


THE CAST

Will Smith as Capt. James Jim West . The problem is not that he s black, it is that he is bored, flat and uninteresting. His character really fails to establish in any way. Even the one liners, which should have been terrific, are flat. Smith, whose early performance in Six Degrees of Separation was so promising, seemed to just barely show up for this part.

Kevin Kline-as US Marshall Artemus Artie Gordon/President Ulysses S Grant. Kline is minimally better, but not much. He seems to enjoy the cross dressing, but even that fails to be a dominant characteristic. He is at his worst as Ulysses Grant. I have been a fan since A Fish Called Wanda for which he won an academy award.

Kenneth Branagh as Dr Arliss Loveless. This is the most interesting character of the movie, and his sole motivation for everything seems to be revenge tinged with greed, and incidentally, world domination. I would have liked to develop a little more sympathy for this character. His best moments are in delivering acid sarcasm to Will Smith s character. Branagh is a fantastic actor, and director as well-but it is not obvious from this flick. He has been nominated for Oscars in writing directing and acting.

Salma Hayek-as Rita Escobar. Shines in counterpoint to the lackluster performances of the males in the cast.
Now if Hollywood would have just used this actress for all the movies that Penelope Cruz has destroyed by being in them....She was cute and convincing. But her character in the end is not even given the courtesy of a believable ending. Bad writing did not help. But she was beautiful.

M. Emmet Walsh as Coleman the Train Engineer. This guy has had a long career as a corrupt cop in all sorts of movies, and he is one consistently competent performance in this movie. Debuted in Midnight Cowboy.

Ted Levine as General Bloodbath McGrath-This character is a stereotypical Southern General, and also more interesting than the main cast, with more depth to his character than was intended, I am sure. Levine is a fantastic stage actor, known well in Chicago, but born in Parma Ohio. I ll bet you did not recognize him as the serial killer 'Buffalo Bill Gumb 'in Silence of the Lambs. I know I didn t.


No one else is really worth mentioning, except for Ling Bai, as Loveless assistant, Miss East. Her big line, however ,
East and West. Never the Twain Shall meet came off badly, and always has me adding :

Know Why? No Twack!


FINAL RECOMMENDATION

Don t watch it unless you can fast forward to the music videos. It is a sad state of affairs when the music videos are more fun to watch than the movie that inspired them.


******

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