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| Hate at first sight: Army captain Jim West (Will Smith) meets U. S. Marshal Artemus Gordon (Kevin Kline). |
Release Date: June 30, 1999. Running Time: 106 minutes. Screenplay: S. S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman. Producer: Jon Peters, Barry Sonnenfeld. Director: Barry Sonnenfeld.
THE PLOT:
The year is 1869, and Captain Jim West (Will Smith) and U. S. Marshal Artemus Gordon (Kevin Kline) are both individually on the trail of former Confederate General "Bloodbath" McGrath (Ted Levine), who is suspected in the disappearances of several top scientists. Both men come close to capturing him, only to end up getting in each other's way - with each blaming the other for the botched operation. President Ulysses S. Grant has a solution: He orders them to work together to find McGrath and the scientists.
The evidence leads to a Louisiana plantation house that is hosting former Confederates and foreign dignitaries. There, they rescue Rita Escobar (Salma Hayek), daughter of one of the missing scientists. They also discover that McGrath is working for Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh), an engineering genius believed to have been killed in the Civil War.
Loveless has a plan to take over the country, to make "the United, divided." It falls to West and Gordon to stop him - that is, if they can stop bickering for long enough to focus on their enemy!
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| West and Gordon are captured. Naturally, they blame each other. |
CHARACTERS:
Jim West: Entirely unlike his counterpart from the 1960s television show, this movie's West uses violence as a first resort. He's resourceful in the moment, but he never stops to think before acting. There are indications that he's haunted by his past. All of this might have made for an interesting lead character... except that, in star Will Smith's hands, West is largely shown to be fast talking, charismatic, and wisecracking. Basically, instead of the character we're told that he is, what we get is... late 1990s Will Smith.
Artemus Gordon: At least Gordon is recognizable as the same character from the show, albeit much sillier. In contrast to West, he is a meticulous planner. He considers violence to be a failure of imagination, preferring to use disguises and inventions to achieve his goals. West's tactics aren't just the opposite of his - They actively offend him, leading to him repeatedly stating that West is an idiot. While Will Smith falls back a bit too much on his late 1990s persona, Kevin Kline leans too much into his character's quirkiness. As a result, entirely too many of his scenes see a usually gifted comic performer grasping desperately for any laugh he can find.
Dr. Arliss Loveless: With the two leads playing up for laughs, it might have been a good idea for the villain to strike a contrast. That happens, in a way... but only in that Kenneth Branagh goes so far over-the-top that Smith and Kline seem restrained by comparison. He puts on an exaggerated accent, contorting his face while shouting every line delivery. The resulting cartoon villain is almost entirely ineffective, and I think the performance is a strong contender for Branagh's career worst.
Rita: Infiltrates Loveless's plantation as an entertainer, only to end up locked in a cage for her trouble. Not because Loveless suspects her in any way - He's just a pervert. After her rescue, West wants to leave her behind so that she doesn't get in the way of the mission. She responds by using feminine wiles to appeal to both West and Gordon so that they allow her to come with them. She proceeds to contribute absolutely nothing to the story, existing purely as an object of desire for the two leads. Salma Hayek does what she can, but the script gives her practically nothing to work with.
Gen. "Bloodbath" McGrath: Loveless's henchman is as cartoonish as Loveless himself, but he works a lot better. His ear was shot off in the war, so his wears a trumpet in its place, which he manually adjusts depending on his mood of the moment. Gordon tries to ensnare him by dressing up as a woman, with results that are... um, unconvincing. McGrath immediately gravitates toward Gordon-in-drag; and while none of the dialogue is funny, Ted Levine manages to wring a couple chuckles out of the material thanks to his exaggerated facial expressions.
President Ulysses S. Grant: Written for original series star Robert Conrad, who was initially interested in a cameo role - right up until he read the script, at which point he became one of the film's most vocal critics. Instead of Conrad, Kevin Kline pulls double duty as Grant... and, in a couple of scenes, as Gordon disguised as Grant. Bizarrely, and despite the padded suit, facial hair, and accent, Kline actually plays this cameo role straighter than he does his main role.
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| Dr. Loveless (Kenneth Branagh) trades barbs with Jim West. Notice that I don't describe those barbs as "witty." |
"SAY SOMETHING NICE":
Wild Wild West has a sort of steampunk visual aesthetic that, while not particularly faithful to the television series, actually works on its own merits. Several frames are filled with mechanical cogs and smoke, with that smoke also used for a couple nifty transitions - notably a seamless cut from the smoke from Gordon's motorized bicycle to the steam of the heroes' train. I'm not a fan of the mechanical spider that dominates the Third Act, but I mostly enjoyed the look of the film.
"SO... WHAT WERE THEY ON?"
One of the appeals of the classic television series, The Wild, Wild West, was the pairing of Robert Conrad's Jim West with Ross Martin's Artemus Gordon. In the show, the man of action and the man of science worked together with affable good humor as they used their skills to defeat the villains of the week.
In the movie, West and Gordon hate each other.
The film tries to follow the enduring "buddy cop" template, as two partners who have different styles gradually learn to respect each other's abilities. The problem is... That never actually happens in this film. West and Gordon start out hating each other. They proceed to continue hating each other. Then they hate each other some more.
Eventually, they have a well-written exchange in which they seem to reach an understanding... only for West to promptly ignore Gordon's attempts to come up with a plan, sneering at him as he dashes off to justify his title as "Master of the Stupid Stuff." We never once see them acting as a team (the climax separates them completely), and so there's a never a sense that they've worked out their differences.
If I wanted to spend two hours in the company of bickering couples, I'd have gone into divorce law, thanks.
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| A human head is used as a projector. This is not the strangest thing in the movie. |
OTHER MUSINGS:
Wild Wild West reteams director Barry Sonnenfeld and star Will Smith in an action/comedy that tries hard to recapture the magic of their previous hit, Men in Black. Though ostensibly based on the vintage television series, it really plays more like "Men in Black in the Old West." Which would be fine, except that it largely fails.
Smith and Kline have zero screen chemistry. Instead of complementing each other, each seems to be trying to outdo the other in a desperate search for laughs. Meanwhile, Kenneth Branagh seems to be acting in a different movie entirely. The film did poorly with audiences and worse with critics, and it became an instantly notorious box office flop.
None of which I can argue with. By any reasonable measure, this is a bad movie. And yet... I kind of enjoyed it.
The gags may not be funny, but the film still maintains an appealingly light atmosphere. It moves along quickly. Scenes and set pieces are on screen long enough to register and to advance the plot before moving on. The only scene that seriously overstays its welcome is a strained would-be comedy bit featuring Will Smith in drag (a scene that was reportedly only retained because producer Jon Peters loved it). As a result, even as I groaned and/or rolled my eyes at the inanity on display, I remained generally entertained.
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| A tank is at the center of the movie's most memorable set piece... and then is never seen again. |
Sonnenfeld even manages a couple of deft tonal switches. There's a mid-film massacre that makes for an extremely effective set piece. A tank created by Loveless and his scientists swivels in a lethal circle, killing everyone around it. This should be jarring, because it's so different from the exaggerated comedy surrounding it. Instead, it fits, I think because Loveless continues to behave like an exaggerated cartoon, chortling as the massacre unfolds and taking notes about the interval between screams. Then West and Gordon arrive at the massacre site and are suitably subdued in the presence of the dead. It's the only point at which Loveless actually works as a villain.
That tank really should have been the big superweapon: a personification of faceless, mechanized death that fits with the steampunk aesthetic while puncturing the otherwise comedic tone. By contrast, the giant mechanical spider that dominates the Third Act is... well, silly, and not really in a good way. Given that the tank is never even mentioned again, I wouldn't be surprised if it was originally intended to be Loveless's superweapon, only to get replaced by studio demand for something "bigger" - which fits with indications that the spider was a pet obsession of Jon Peters, who had really wanted a giant spider as an enemy in a cancelled Superman project.
THE MUSIC:
This was the last western scored by the great Elmer Bernstein. Sadly, this score does not rank among his better ones. The original music is... fine. It does its job in supporting action set pieces and in connecting one scene to the next. However, there's nothing memorable about it. Compare with the Men in Black theme, which really established the off-kilter tone of that movie's universe, and the difference is clear. That score both complemented and lifted up sequences; this score is just... there.
Meanwhile, an arrangement of Richard Markowitz's excellent theme from the television series is heard exactly once, as the characters ride into the Third Act. It's by far the best music in the movie, and I have no idea why the film didn't use more of it.
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| Loveless's mechanical spider. Bizarre and silly, and not in a good way. |
THE OTHER NOMINEES:
1999 was a peculiar year for the Razzies. In a year that saw the releases of such dreadful titles as Baby Geniuses, The Mod Squad (a classic TV series update that I found much worse than Wild Wild West), and The Omega Code, the Razzies chose instead to nominate:
Big Daddy: An Adam Sandler comedy that tried to combine gross-out humor with sentimentality, with the result mainly being a gooey mess. I didn't much care for it, but I wouldn't label it particularly bad. It apparently pleased its target audience, as it was a huge hit.
The Blair Witch Project: The movie that popularized the "found footage" horror subgenre. Which I suppose is reason enough to target it, but it's actually a rather good example of its type.
The Haunting: A remake of the horror classic, The Haunting of Hill House. At least this one is actually regarded as a bad movie - but my impression is that it's more "mediocre programmer" than "Worst of the Worst."
Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace: I will never share the hate for this movie. Yes, Jar-Jar is annoying and much of the dialogue is awful. But most of the world-building that created the Star Wars universe originated here. The political subplot sketches in a lot of story and backstory in just a few minutes, the Palpatine material is excellent, and the music and VFX hold up a quarter of a century later.
In short, it's pretty clear that the Razzies were going for "big titles" over actual bad movies this year.
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| Gordon creates a working version of Da Vinci's flying machine. West is understandably skeptical. |
OVERALL:
Wild Wild West is by no means a good movie, but I found it to be a strangely enjoyable one. It has visual flair and a few well-directed set pieces, and it maintains an appealingly light tone even as most of its actual gags fail to land.
If nothing else, I wasn't bored by it. That in itself is enough for me to rank it among the better Razzie winners I've reviewed to date.
Rating: Popcorn & Soda.
Worst Picture - 1998: An Alan Smithee Film - Burn, Hollywood, Burn!
Worst Picture - 2000: Battlefield Earth
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