Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh
Hey. This looks familiar! Will Smith playing a renegade hero teamed up with a not so renegade slighty weird hero played by an older, talented actor. Together they fight evil and Will wins the girl. Well, sort of. So we're talking about Men in Black, right? No. Independence day? No. Enemy of the State? No. But are you starting to see a pattern to Mr. Smith's roles? No? Get out of my reviews then, cause you don't have minimum IQ requirements.
Think about it. In independence day, they put Will, renegade army guy together with Jeff Goldblum to battle the evil aliens. The movie companies liked that SO much that a year later, Will, a renegade cop, was put together with Tommy Lee Jones to battle evil aliens. In enemy of the people...oh I just have to stop. It's too much!
But in Wild Wild West, Will, a renegade government agent, is teamed with Kevin Kline, to battle the evil alien-like Kenneth Branagh as Loveless. (also Legless, but that's beside the point).
I love Kevin Kline. He is a comedic genius, in my humble opinion, and can do no wrong that watching French Kiss again won't have me forgiving. In this movie, he provides a lot of the laughs as the so-called 'straight man' to Will's hilarious, tough talking, wise-cracking renegade cop...or was that reneade army man? Renegade renegade? I have a headache.
Will Smith is king of the Summertime box Office. He's a sure thing. Handsome, funny, able to make twin scripts look like different movies by replacing the word 'alien' with 'loveless' and 'black suit' with 'black cowboy outfit' and 'big spaceship' with 'large spider machine'. Essentially, the words are the same, but 'Tommy Lee Jones'' was crosses out and replaced with 'Kevin Kline'. Will writes a new spiffy song ('Here come the Men in Black' was crossed out in favour of 'Here comes the wild wild west')
I shouldn't have to outline the plot of this movie because unless you've been living under a rock since 1996, you've probably seen one of the other Will Smith-mobiles which passed through town, and therefore you know all the significant plot points. Smith gives his usual wisecracking, cookie cutter performance, and Kevin Kline shows his ability to step down a few rungs on the film evolutionary ladder. Kenneth Branagh shows considerable depth as the parapalegic Loveless, somewhat on par with Tom Cruis in 'Born on the Fourth of July'. Stick with Shakespeare, Ken. Didn't you get the memo? He's HUGE this year. Just ask Miss Pepto Bismal, Gwenyth Paltrow.
Yep. Will Smith can pump out a fine little ditty once a year and smack it onto the credits that were recycled from his past movies. Next year, I hear he's going to play a Renegade gynocologist teamed up with Sean Connery to battle the evil Vaginaliens. "Here Come the Gyno-men' is going to be the title track on the CD. We'll all go see it, no doubt.
Did I say he was the slickest there is?