Will Smith Month - Wild Wild West (1999)

       Hey guys, Chuck here, and welcome back to Will Smith Month. Today, we head back to the year 1999 for Will Smith's second feature film collaboration with director Barry Sonnenfeld: Wild Wild West. Based loosely on the television series of the same name, Will is joined in this movie by the likes of Kevin Kline, Salma Hayek, Ted Levine, M Emmett Walsh, Bai Ling, Musetta Vander, and Kenneth Branagh. 

        Set in the year 1869, the movie focuses on US Army Captain James "Jim" West, who is hunting for notorious criminal and former Confederate General "Bloodbath" McGrath. Also seeking the former General is US Marshal Artemis Gordon. West seeks McGrath for revenge against the massacre that killed his parents, and Gordon seeks the location of several missing scientists. The two are assigned by President Ulysses S. Grant to work together and find McGrath and whomever he's working for. 

        West and Gordon are assigned the Wanderer locomotive, and head to New Orleans, where McGrath will be attending a party held by Doctor Arliss Loveless, who was previously presumed to be dead. It turns out that McGrath is working for Loveless, who is having the scientists abducted to create his ultimate weapon against the US Government: a massive steampunk robot tarantula. West and Gordon also ally themselves with Rita Escobar, who is related to one of the missing scientists. 

        So, West and Gordon work together to stop Loveless, save the country, rescue the scientists, blah blah blah blah blah.

        Okay, so the concept of the movie seemed neat, but it utterly failed in execution. Honestly, I don't even blame Will Smith or Kevin Kline. Both of them were really funny in this, and I enjoyed their performances quite a bit. Hell, I even got a kick out of the fact that Kline was both Artemis Gordon AND President Grant. Salma Hayek was terrific, as we're Bai Ling and Musetta Vander as Doctor Loveless' henchwomen. But honestly, Ted Levine and Kenneth Branagh we're waaaayy too over the top in this movie. Honestly, it felt cartoonish and silly to be taken seriously. 

       And what the hell was the point of a giant steampunk robot tarantula? I mean, talk about a jump the shark element of the movie. What were they thinking throwing that thing into this movie? Isn't it supposed to be a Western? Geez. 

         Now, I did have fun with this movie. I even enjoyed the title track that was performed by Will Smith for the movie. But unfortunately, some of the magic of Will Smith and Barry Sonnenfeld that worked in Men in Black didn't quite carry over to this movie. I can, sadly, only give Wild Wild West a rating of 2/5, and that's being generous. 

      This is Chuck signing off, and Will Smith Month continues on Monday with Bad Boys II.

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