Wild Wild West
I didn’t like “Wild Wild West” when it came out in 1999, and even I think I gave it more credit than it deserves. This is a trainwreck. It’s a big-budget comedy that’s not funny. It’s a tentpole adventure film that is laborious and tiring. And it brought the charmed runs of Will Smith and director Barry Sonnenfeld to a screeching halt. It’s hard to even know where to begin.
The film is based on a TV show of the same name, but it’s really a tailor made starring role for Will Smith as James West, a US Army officer whom is chasing after the violent General McGrath (Ted Levine) when the film begins, a chase he shares with US Marshal, and scientific genius, Artemus Gordon (Kevin Kline), although he doesn’t know it at the start. But McGrath is a pawn, though, when compared to a vicious genius, Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh), who has a bone to pick with the American president, Ulysses S. Grant, and has kidnapped many of the country’s best scientists in an attempt to try and take control of the country.
Allow me to speak some positives. The Elmer Bernstein score is a joy to listen to, and really tries to make this fun to watch. And Smith and Kline make a fine pair, even if the material they are given isn’t really funny- it’s a shame they have not worked together since, because I very much enjoy them together, and would like to see another go of it. (And since Grant is played by Kline, as well, kudos for the “Dave” reference.) From there, it is downhill in the worst way.
I have seen poor film performances before. I’ve watched “The Room,” “Birdemic” and most of the episodes of “Mystery Science Theater 3000.” But as Arliss Loveless, Kenneth Branagh may very well be the worst example of film acting I’ve ever seen. Affecting an appallingly broad southern drawl, and confined to being a torso with arms and a face with awful facial hair, Branagh is a ludicrous supervillain that wants to control the world, and whose technological marvels include…a mechanical spider and “cone of shame” magnets. By the time he and his female lieutenants are rider the aforementioned spider to destroy a town, his performance has ratcheted the hamming up to 11, and he does not let up until his ridiculous death as James West finds a waiting chain to hold on to.
If Branagh’s performance were in a film that did what you feel like it wants to do, I think it would feel less egregious than it does. The problem is, Sonnenfeld (who had come off the two “Addams Family” films, “Get Shorty” and “Men in Black”) cannot get the tone right- it’s too big and loud to be a nimble adventure film, and not funny enough to even work as a comedy. And as an action film, it is lifeless and paint-by-numbers; even if it doesn’t land as a comedy, you would hope Sonnenfeld could have at least landed in making this a fun action movie for the summer. Instead, it is bloated, convoluted and absurd to watch. Everyone in this movie deserves better. Except Kenneth Branagh. He deserves every level of awful this movie sinks to.
