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| Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld; Starring Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Selma Hayeck, M. Emmet Walsh, Ted Levine, Frederique Van Der Wal, Musetta Vander, and Sofia Eng |
What is with the 4th of July movie and me? Over the past four years I’ve been forced into the supposed big movie of the summer and each year I’ve disliked what I saw. Last year’s Armageddon was the worst summer film of the year, and don’t even get me started up on 1996’s Independence Day. The closest one to a recommendation was the C+ that Men in Black merited. That brings me to this years 4 July film: Wild Wild West. After starring in two of the three previous 4 July films, Will Smith proves once and for all that the studios are one of the few that think this is his time to be released. The only film from Smith that I have liked was last year’s fall released Enemy of the State (from Armageddon producer Jerry Bruckheimer, of all people). I think that he works in most of the roles he takes, but the films never seem to work beyond the fact that they have Will Smith in them. Independence Day was laughably bad and a major reason for that was in its inability to go beyond the poorly written Smith character. His work with Barry Sonnenfeld two years ago in Men in Black was right for the work, but Sonnenfeld took a very slight direction to the film and it somewhat tanked in the realm of enjoyability (I’m sorry, with the exception of Full Metal Jacket, Vincent D’Onofrio has never been able to fit in a film with out screwing it up). Sonnenfeld has reteamed with Smith for Wild Wild West, with me hoping that they can out-do Men in Black, especially considering that they now have an impressive supporting cast with Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh. Unfortunately the film falls flat and just isn’t funny or even fun for that matter.
Remaking the 60’s series of the same name, Smith plays US Marshal Jim West stuck with inventor CIA Agent Artemus Gordon (Kline) in 1869 US. A group of ex-Confederates lead by legless Dr. Arliss Loveless (Branagh) are setting out a plot to kill President Ulysses S. Grant and take of the US with other nations that have been stomped upon by the US in the past. Joining West and Gordon is Rita Escobar (Hayek), who was saved from Loveless by them as she attempted to save her scientist father. It seems that Loveless has kidnapped all the established scientists in the world, so they can produce weapons useful to him in winning the war.
At times Wild Wild West is idiotic and pointless, with laughs only few and far between. Easily the saving graces of the film are Kline and Branagh who both play their parts as well as if they were doing Shakespeare. The script is dry and predictable with most of the Bond-esque wisecracks as funny as Roger Ebert’s discovery from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me on what can and can’t be in a PG-13 film. Levinson’s direction is probably his worst (sad what can happen to such an established cinematographer when given too much power directing). The camp fun of Wild Wild West did not even bring me up to a recommendation, which even the decidedly hated The Avengers was able to do.
