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Going into Wild Wild West, I could only hope. The casting of Will Smith as early Secret Service agent James West seemed dicey, but he began showing with Enemy of the State that maybe he’s more than just a sitcom actor if helped out by somebody of Gene Hackman’s caliber, so having Kevin Kline along as his gadget-oriented partner Artemus Gordon, and Kenneth Branagh as evil Dr. Loveless, couldn’t hurt. And Barry Sonnenfeld (the Addams Family movies, Get Shorty, and Smith’s 1997 summer hit Men In Black) is certainly a talented director. As the opening credits rolled, featuring music and titles similar to the original TV series, things were looking good.
Then the movie started. Once again, the ingredients are at the mercy of the recipe, which in this case is scripted by a four-man committee whose collective credits include Ghost Dad, Tremors 2, and Short Circuit 2. The result is flat humor, less-than-engrossing action, and still more attempts at political correctness, which can’t be saved by some pretty neat visual effects. The plot is all about a mad genius (Branagh), coincidentally to provide foil for a black lead actor also a former Confederate general, who wants to avenge his bisecting war injury by taking over the country. To this end he’s kidnapped the top scientists of 1869 and pooled their talents to construct lethal Jules Vernian machines that are to the weapons of the period what CDs are to 8-track tapes. West and Gordon are assigned by President Grant to stop him, which they do despite everybody in Wild Wild West looking like they’re appearing on screen for the first time, even Kline and Branagh. The elements simply never come together. There’s potential in the premise, but it gets all clouded up with Southern cliches, strained attempts to combine Fresh Prince with John Wayne by way of James Bond, and the presence of Salma Hayek, who is given little to do other than fill out a corset.
With a different star — Mel Gibson was attached to the project at one time — and a director such as Terry Gilliam, who is comfortable with wacky Victorian machines, Wild Wild West could have worked. Instead it’s a very big-budget addition to the trash heap of crummy, sometimes even embarrassing movies that screw up the legacy of a popular TV series. D+
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