|
||||||
I’m so glad I didn’t pay for this. And on that note, I’d like to thank the good people at 600 North Michigan Sony Cineplex theaters for having such lax security and bad attitudes. If they hadn’t been so late, and unapologetic, in opening their doors for the matinee shows, I may not have been so compelled to leave the South Park movie, get a bite to eat at their concession stand (Hot dog and medium Cherry Coke, $6.04, please), and walk back in to the screen next door and catch Wild Wild West. If they had caught me on my way out, I would have told them they owed ME money for sitting through it. Will Smith’s domination of July 4th weekend (Independence Day, Men In Black) has come to an abysmal end. The first troubling sign I heard on this project was when George Clooney backed out of the role of Artemus Gordon, but I thought it was due to scheduling conflicts.. Then I heard they did some reshoots at the last minute, which is never a good sign. Now I’m assuming Clooney saw the script and ran screaming from this dog, and everyone else stayed on board because Smith hasn’t missed in years, and director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men In Black, Get Shorty) arguably hasn’t missed ever. Until now. And man, oh man, did they miss. Smith is Jim West, an Army captain trying to track down a vicious General "Blood Bath" McGrath. President Grant assigns West and US Marshal/master of disguise Gordon (Kevin Kline) to track down the notorious Arliss Loveless, who has been kidnapping the country’s best scientists in order to create a weapon of mass destruction to aid his plan to give the United States back to Spain, Mexico, France and England. Loveless, played by Kenneth Branagh with typical Branaghisms (he doesn’t seem to know to do anything but overact anymore), is still a little bitter about the south having to surrender to the north, not to mention the fact that he has no legs. But so what? I mean, really, do you give a damn about the plot of this movie since the people involved didn’t? I didn’t think so. There were so many things wrong with this, I don’t even know where to begin. Smith and Kline had zero chemistry, and both of them had even less chemistry with Salma Hayek, the token damsel in distress (a part she does not play very well; hell, she was the spawn of evil in From Dusk Till Dawn). The plot was absurd, the editing was atrocious (witness the scene where Smith is getting pummelled by a man seemingly made of iron. Smith gives the man the shovel he was just hitting him with, the man gets electrocuted and falls to his death, and we have NO IDEA why), there were some blue screen shots that were laughably awful… I think you get my point. In May, this looked like it could be a killer summer. But so far, the only things that have met my expectations have been two cartoons, Tarzan and South Park (two very different cartoons, it should be noted). The rest of the movies I wound up thinking were just okay. But this was just painful. No more movies from TV shows, please. Rating: * Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times: * Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: **
|
