Wild Wild West
Warner Bros., 1999
Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

$$

You can tell what they were thinking. Take an old 60s TV series. Make Will Smith the star. Secure fast food tie-ins and release it on a major Summer holiday. The studio executives at Warner Bros. probably thought the formula couldn't fail. But nobody bothered to think about whether a) anybody in their target audience was old enough to remember the old show; or b) whether Will Smith was right for the part. And thus the failure that is Wild Wild West

Smith's casting seems to be the first mistake in remaking the old show which, from what I'm told, was like "James Bond in the Old West." Smith gives his usual performance, which is to say he's a walking, talking stereotype. It's worked for him before, but not here. You don't for a second believe he's living in 1869. The script's muddled first act doesn't help. Smith's character, Captain James West, never gets a proper introduction. Remember the great opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark in which we learned everything we needed to know about Indiana Jones. We needed that same kind of scene here to get hooked into the character of Jim West, but it doesn't happen. We're supposed to like him just because he's Will Smith.

The whole movie feels slapped together. The pacing is off and the story never finds a groove. The action sequences are over before they start. Kevin Kline is very good as Treasury Agent Artemus Gordon who teams-up with West to foil a kidnapping plot. His character is as well-developed as Smith's isn't. Kline also does double duty as President U.S. Grant. This is only done so Gordon can believably impersonate the President. Yep, that's right: Kevin Kline plays both a President and a guy who impersonates the President. Just like he did in Dave. I'd say Kline has picked out a niche for himself.

Salma Hayek is especially beautiful-but-underused as the love interest. Kenneth Branagh, wearing a weird beard, makes a decent villain. And there's some nifty special effects involving that giant steel tarantula you've seen in the ads. But the sum of the parts just don't add up. This West just isn't very wild.

(c) Copyright 1999