Let’s see. It’s the July 4th weekend, a major Hollywood blockbuster is opening, and Will Smith plays a swaggering hot shot. There is a lot of wisecracking, there are a lot of funky gadgets, Barry Sonnenfeld directs. Is it 1998? Is it Men in Black? Yogi Berra once said, “It’s deja vu all over again.” You might feel the same way after seeing Wild, Wild West. Kevin Kline plays Artemus Gordon, an older, rational, cerebral type, not unlike a certain Tommy Lee Jones character. The dramatic climax of both movies involves the heroes being chased by a giant bug. There is an out-of-the-blue, brilliant sight gag involving a dog, not unlike the newsstand alien disguised as a pug in Men in Black. There’s even a tiny gun that draws giggles initially but naturally ends up in the right hands at the right time. No brainpower is necessary to watch this movie because, basically, it’s been done before with different costumes.
Based on the 60’s television series, Wild, Wild West tells the story of Jim West (Smith) and Artemus Gordon. Both are government agents who work for President Ulysses S. Grant, beginning as adversaries and, of course, ending up as trusted partners. Gordon is a master of disguise constantly inventing, while West is a shoot-from-the-hip reactionary lawman. West is the physical, Gordon the intellectual. Smith is essentially playing the same part as in Men in Black, but in a black cowboy hat. His appeal as a performer is undeniable, even in a role as silly as this one. Kevin Kline is okay, but his talent is under utilized. Along the way they are joined by Rita Escobar, played by Salma Hayek in a thankless role with no evident purpose beyond ogling. They all get on a train loaded with extras and head West from Washington D.C. to take on the bad guy.
And what a bad guy they find. Kenneth Branagh is Arliss Loveless. He chews up the scenery, spits it out, and chews it up again. He goes over the top and never looks back. Loveless is a bitter officer of the Confederate army whose plan is to kidnap President Grant (an unrecognizable Kevin Kline) and force him into turning over the United States government. He’s got a lot of high-tech weapons and gadgets; his hangout is very old West/sci fi. It’s the wicked industrial revolution versus old-fashioned prairie values. Branagh plays the legless spider lover as pure comic book, right down to the evil Foghorn Leghorn accent. His giant tarantula transport is awesome. I wish the preview didn’t show it so the impact of seeing it for the first time in the movie was stronger.
Now that Russians are no longer the enemy, movies have turned to other stereotypes for their bad guys. This time it’s rednecks. There’s a fair amount of race baiting in Wild, Wild West. For the most part, the enemies are portrayed as dumb Southerners. We know who the bad guys are because they insult black people. Is it too much to expect a movie with a budget this big to avoid slave jokes? I don’t mean to sound overly politically correct, but it seems like we’ve evolved enough as a society that we don’t need the only African-American actor in a movie to do a ‘Yes, master’ routine.
But guess what? It’s entertaining anyway. Sonnenfeld (Addams Family, Get Shorty) has a sharp knack for playing to the masses. Wild, Wild West pushes a lot of popular buttons. We have slapstick, likable heroes, cool toys, and breasts. You heard me. There aren’t many mainstream motion pictures that feature cleavage as prominently as this one. Loveless is surrounded by a buxom trio of supermodels in bad moods and low-cut dresses. Plot points involving breasts run the gamut from the invention of implants, to cause for a lynching, to all-out blazing weaponry. They should have been given a credit at the end of the movie.
It is telling that Barry Sonnenfeld, the director of Wild, Wild West, began his career as a cinematographer for the Coen Brothers on films like Blood Simple and Raising Arizona. He knows how to work a camera. Sonnenfeld’s visual realizations are impressive in Wild, Wild West. The orange desert and blue sky vistas of the southern Utah desert, the hyper-industrial interiors of Arliss Loveless’ lair, the spinning pool table and ejecto-floors of the train, the garish and purposefully obvious blue screen sequences and the aerial photography all combine to create a great looking movie. Unfortunately, it’s ultimately a lot like the desert landscape featured so prominently: pretty, but empty.
+ David Kern
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