"Wild Wild West" has good cinematography, sets,
costumes, and casting. What it lacks is a
story that makes sense, and a script to draw
anything consequential out of the characters.

Based loosely on the 60s television show,
the film stars Will Smith and Kevin Kline as
action heroes, with Kenneth Branagh camping
it up as the villain. Smith is a cowboy,
gunslinger and stud. He walks into the White
House like he owns the place, even firing
a handgun into the ceiling.

Kline is a conceited inventor and 'master of
disguise'. We first see him as the most obvious
female impersonator since Jack Lemmon in "Some
Like it Hot". Later, he invents the first
airplane, some thirty years before the Wright
brothers. Kline's gadget-rigged train is soon
one-upped by Branagh's hundred-foot-tall
missile-launching mechanical spider, a preposterous
machine for its supposed era.

Branagh is a campy villain in the style of a
"Batman" movie. Physically crippled, he moves
about using a propelled wheelchair that also
has mechanical legs. Branagh schemes of kidnapping
President Grant and forcing him to surrender
the United States government. The U.S. will then
be carved up into pieces given to foreign
governments, except for leaving a big slice for
Branagh to run himself.

President Grant (also Kline) keeps a jaded poker face
throughout despite the ridiculous plot developments.
He sends his two best men (Smith and Kline, of
course) to stop Branagh. Smith and Kline are
the Odd Couple of action heroes, seemingly agreeing
on only one thing: that Salma Hayek is a babe
worth seducing. (One scene has them both leering
at Hayek's exposed butt, which only in filmdom
would she not notice was uncovered.)

More silliness: Smith and Kline fall off a high
cliff into chest-deep mud, unharmed and without
even getting their hair wet. The story is
senseless throughout, and is a waste of acting
talent and good sets and cinematography. (32/100)






Recommended: No