Wild Wild West ** (1999, Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Salma Hayek) – Classic Movie Review 1777

Director Barry Sonnenfeld’s slack 1999 comedy is a carelessly handled and drossily scripted big-screen version of the 1965-69 TV series The Wild Wild West that gets by on the skills and charms of its stars, as well as its handsome, costly production.

It must have been a near thing, touch and go, but Smith’s charisma and star appeal just turned it into a box-office bonanza after poor reviews.

Will Smith (as trigger-happy former Civil War hero Captain Jim West) and Kevin Kline (as Artemus ‘Artie’ Gordon, an inventive US Marshal who excels in disguise) are certainly funny people, even when they’re faced with such a mirthless script. But Kenneth Branagh as a legless megalomaniac and psychotic Confederate called Dr Arliss Loveless and Salma Hayek (who has little to do except show her bum) as Rita Escobar show no comic flair.

Slack and slipshod, it plays like a 60s caper extravaganza like The Great Race or Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines. Kline’s dual role as the American President Ulysses S Grant is one role too many, and both his and Smith’s drag turns are pretty embarrassing. At least when the special effects take over in the last half hour things liven up and it distracts the attention from the struggling script and actors.

It helps that esteemed character actors M Emmet Walsh and Ted Levine are also in the cast.

It cost $170million, and took in $200million worldwide.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1777

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