{"id":8132,"date":"2024-11-11T23:26:26","date_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:26:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=8132"},"modified":"2024-11-11T23:26:26","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T04:26:26","slug":"wild-wild-west","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/11\/11\/wild-wild-west\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild Wild West"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Wild Wild West <\/strong>(1999)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action-Comedy-Western\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language, racial epithets, action violence, sexual references\/innuendo)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Barry Sonnenfeld\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: S.S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Elmer Bernstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Michael Ballhaus\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 30, 1999 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Salma Hayek, M. Emmett Walsh, Ted Levine, Bai Ling, Frederique van der Wal, Musetta Vander, Garcelle Beauvais, Rodney A. Grant, Buck Taylor.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $113.7M (US)\/$222.1M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: NO STARS!!!<\/p>\n

\u00a0What a vile, vile mess! Nothing goes right in Wild Wild West<\/strong>, a misconceived adaptation of the cult TV series (1965-69) about a gadget-happy Secret Service agent in the Old West. Think James Bond on horseback. It isn\u2019t just bad, it\u2019s brutally bad! It instantly earned a spot on my \u201c10 Worst Movies of All Time\u201d list; I didn\u2019t even have to think about it. Good thing since I left the theater with a pounding headache from all the noise and mayhem.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The original series had a clever premise in that it combined elements of westerns and spy shows. Agent James West and partner Artemus Gordon rode the Old West on board their specially-equipped train \u201cThe Wanderer\u201d protecting the President while keeping the country safe from megalomaniacs and other dastardly villains. The show was noted for the agents\u2019 and villains\u2019 use of technologically-advanced gadgets and weapons. One might even argue that The Wild Wild West ultimately gave rise to the steampunk subculture.<\/p>\n

\u00a0None of the charm and cleverness of the TV series is on display in Wild Wild West<\/strong>. It\u2019s a loud, bloated, incomprehensible mess that sucks all the life right out of the theater. More oft than not, TV-to-movie adaptations don\u2019t work for one reason or another. Rarely do they fail as miserably as Wild Wild West<\/strong>, a movie that not only validates Murphy\u2019s Law, it takes it to the next level. Everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong to the point of the entire movie being a criminal offense. Is there a statute of limitations on aggravated sensory assault charges? Does it apply when the victim watches the movie again several years later? Is there a lawyer in the house who would care to address these questions?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Will Smith (Men in Black) steps in for Robert Conrad in the lead role. Agent West is a groovy sort of cat who has no problem picking up women. We first meet him taking a bath with Belle (Beauvais, NYPD Blue) in a water tower when he spots longtime adversary General \u201cBloodbath\u201d McGrath (Levine, The Silence of the Lambs) conducting some shady business. Long story short, West ends up standing naked in front of a bunch of villains. It\u2019s also his first encounter with future partner Artemus Gordon (Kline, A Fish Called Wanda) who\u2019s working undercover (read, in drag) to nail McGrath. Naturally, they end up butting heads.<\/p>\n

\u00a0They meet again at the Oval Office when President Ulysses Grant (Kline in a dual role) summons them to investigate the disappearances of many prominent scientists and a related treasonous plot by McGrath. The pair boards \u201cThe Wanderer\u201d for the first time and head off to discover who or what is behind the unexplained disappearances. They are eventually joined by Rita (Hayek, Desperado), a hot Mexican mamacita<\/em> looking for her missing scientist father. Naturally, both horny dudes develop the hots for her.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It turns out a deranged ex-Confederate scientist named Dr. Arliss Loveless (Branagh, Henry V) is the one engineering a nefarious plot to kidnap President Grant and threaten to destroy the US unless he gives in to his insane demands. It doesn\u2019t really matter what these demands are; it has something to do with dividing the states between several foreign countries and himself. It\u2019s the next best thing to total world domination, I guess. Not just any ordinary megalomaniac, the legless Loveless (he gets around in a steam-powered wheelchair) has a giant, weaponized mechanical spider with two built-in cannons at his disposal. It\u2019s up to West and Gordon (the builder of West\u2019s gadgets) to save the President, defeat Loveless and make the US safe for democracy once again. All in a day\u2019s work, I suppose.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I absolutely loathe Wild Wild West<\/strong>. It\u2019s insulting in how it shows such utter contempt for its audience. It\u2019s one of the excruciating movie experiences that I\u2019ve ever had. Even so, I willingly chose to subject myself to a second viewing in hopes of gaining a fresh perspective on it, but it only reaffirmed my hatred of it. When I first saw it back in \u201999, I had an epiphany about midway through. It hit me that Smith is a highly overrated actor. That\u2019s not to say that he hasn\u2019t been good in other movies. He was quite good in Six Degrees of Separation. He was fine in Independence Day, Men in Black, Hitch and Bad Boys I & II. I even liked him in Enemy of the State. I can take or leave the rest of his movies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At this point, one might be tempted to ask what possessed the producers to cast Smith as James West. I already know the answer to that and so do you. It\u2019s the almighty box office dollar. Isn\u2019t that ALWAYS the bottom line? At the time, Smith\u2019s name above the title guaranteed a huge turn-out. The sad thing is audiences did show up to see Wild Wild West<\/strong> although I have yet to meet a single person who actually liked it. Its domestic gross of $113.7 million fell short of its $170 million price tag making it Smith\u2019s first big box office misfire. This bombastic dud additionally wastes the talents of two gifted actors, Oscar winner Kline and Oscar nominee Branagh. At least Hayek is easy on the eyes as she contributes little else to this fiasco.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Wild Wild West<\/strong> isn\u2019t even pleasant to look at. It\u2019s one of the ugliest mainstream films I\u2019ve ever seen. It\u2019s unfunny, unexciting and unwatchable. It fires one blank after another. It\u2019s depressing how terrible it is. It\u2019s yet another example of that subgenre of summer action movies I like to call \u201cBoys With Toys\u201d. It\u2019s pure cinematic masturbation. The usually exciting visual sense of director Sonnenfeld (Men in Black) comes off as merely self-indulgent and self-gratifying in Wild Wild West<\/strong>. I can\u2019t think of a single positive thing to say about this colossal time waster. It\u2019s not even enjoyably bad; it\u2019s just plain bad. In the vernacular of my generation, IT SUCKS BIG TIME!<\/p>\n

\u00a0If you have fond memories of the original series or even if you\u2019ve never heard of it, make a wide berth around this mega-stinker. Avoid it at all costs! Otherwise, you\u2019ll feel like you stepped in something that came out of the south end of the horse. Now will somebody please pass the Extra Strength Tylenol?\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wild Wild West (1999)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Warner Bros.\/Action-Comedy-Western\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (language, racial epithets, action violence, sexual references\/innuendo)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Barry Sonnenfeld\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: S.S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Elmer Bernstein\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Michael Ballhaus\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: June 30, 1999 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Salma Hayek, M. Emmett […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8296,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,7,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8132","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-action-adventure","category-this-sucks-so-bad","category-westerns"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/11\/Wild-Wild-West-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8132","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8132"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8132\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8298,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8132\/revisions\/8298"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}