Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh and Salma Hayek
As I'm Strollin' to the Wild Wild... What the Hell is This?
Remember when Howard Stern called himself "The King of All Media"? Well the King is dead, long live the new King... Will Smith. Actually I think Will Smith has been the King for a long time. What with his long standing musical career, his long running television series The Fresh Prince of Bel Air... and now he is one of the biggest (if not the biggest) stars in Hollywood. The problem with this is even the best King's lose their crown for a little while. Even his royal highness' presence couldn't pull this movie out of the muck.
Jim West (Will Smith) and Artemus Gordon (Kevin Kline)
U.S. Army Captain Jim West (Will Smith, Enemy of the State, Men in Black, Independence Day) is a suave government agent who is searching for former Confederate (Wild Wild West takes place in 1869) General "Bloodbath" McGrath (Ted Levine, Mad City, Silence of the Lambs). While tracking McGrath he runs into Artemus Gordon (Kevin Kline, In & Out, French Kiss), an inventive and eccenric U.S. Marshall who is working on a similar. Later, under the orders of President Ulyses S. Grant, they are forced to work together to discover who is kidnapping eminent American Scientests and why. They discover that the mastermind behind this scheme is Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh, William Shakespeare's Hamlet), a obsessed southerner who had is legs blown off during the Civil War and wants revenge against the U.S. Government. To do this Loveless is forcing the scientests to build a huge mechanical tarantula that is the greatest war machine of that time. Along the way West and Gordon meet Rita Escobar (Salma Hayek, The Faculty, Fools Rush In) who is the daughter of one of the scientests and is trying to find her father. With his tarantula Loveless plans to force Grant to surrender the United States to him.
Kenneth Branagh as the madman Dr. Arliss Loveless
Sadly that is the entire plot... really, that is it. Wild Wild West leaves something to be desired, actually it leaves several somehtings to be desired. First, a plot. The entire storyline of this movie can be told in one sentence... "Two guys work for the government, and meet a girl while trying to save the U.S. from a madman." Second, more then two or three laughs. Except for a couple of good one liners from Smith and Kline this movie is devoid of comedy. Three, acting. With the exception of Will Smith, and to a lesser degree Kevin Kline the acting is labored and poor. The only redeeming qualities this movie has is some good special effects and a kind of nostalgic feel (I am guessing the movie tried to follow close to the feel of the telveision show). But Will Smith and a few good special effects just aren't enough to save Wild Wild West from being another summer movie with great potential that just couldn't live up to the hype.
