Wild Wild West

Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: June 30, 1999

6.7	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 219 Ratings

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User Reviews

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LoiseSep 13, 2011

It may be me but I do not like this movie (except for Rodney A Grant as Hudson). The story is very thin and the laughs are cheap. The movie contains great actors so it could have been so mush better

3 of 36 users found this helpful333

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BrianMcCriticJun 20, 2013

Another example of lack of ideas who came up with the idea for this dump. This is one Will Smith undoubtedly regrets. There's very little to be positive about maybe the giant metal spider. Wait maybe not.

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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MovieMasterEddyApr 3, 2016

Smith Misfires in 'Wild Wild' Mess!

The best thing about "Wild Wild West" is the jaunty, Stevie Wonder-sampling title tune by Will Smith, and I'm already sick of that. Besides, the movie makes you wait an hour and 47 minutes before it evenSmith Misfires in 'Wild Wild' Mess!

The best thing about "Wild Wild West" is the jaunty, Stevie Wonder-sampling title tune by Will Smith, and I'm already sick of that. Besides, the movie makes you wait an hour and 47 minutes before it even lets you hear it.

"Wild Wild Waste" is more like it.

Waste of time, waste of money and colossal waste of talent.

Let's face it – hordes of people are not going to rush out to a 19th-century costume drama, even one with an 80-foot robot spider, to see Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh and Salma Hayek (although Ms. Hayek certainly is easy on the eyes). The real reason anyone wants to watch "WWW" is "MiB." You're hoping against hope that pairing superstar Smith with his "Men in Black" director Barry Sonnenfeld will produce the same movie magic as their 1997 hit.

You are wrong.

Okay, this film based on the 1960s TV comedy/sci-fi/western starring Robert Conrad does have some of the same ingredients as "Men in Black." As special government agent Jim West, Smith gets to wear cool shades, dress in black and shoot guns (albeit the 1869 version of Ray-Bans, a cowboy outfit and a six-shooter). Instead of Tommy Lee Jones, his quasi-adversarial sidekick is the wacky inventor Artemus Gordon (Kline), who keeps him supplied with "Get Smart"-style secret weapons like a bayonet that pops out of his boot tip. In the special effects category, West does battle not with aliens but with the evil mastermind and double amputee, Dr. Arliss Loveless (Branagh), who plans to take over the United States with a giant flame-throwing hydraulic robot in the shape of a tarantula.

Yeah, I know, it sounds terrific, doesn't it?

Unfortunately, Smith's abundant charm is squandered by making him play second fiddle to a bunch of dumb machines that look like rejected maquettes from a "Star Wars" brainstorming session. He's not asked to be much more than a cinematic Carol Merrill here, looking glamorous while displaying a screen full of high-tech gadgets.

Unfortunately, Smith's abundant charm is squandered by making him play second fiddle to a bunch of dumb machines that look like rejected maquettes from a "Star Wars" brainstorming session. He's not asked to be much more than a cinematic Carol Merrill here, looking glamorous while displaying a screen full of high-tech gadgets.

In fairness, though, he's not the only one. Loveless's henchwomen are also played by a quartet of wooden supermodels (Frederique Van Der Wal, Bai Ling, Musetta Vander and Sofia Eng). What Hayek is doing here I've already forgotten. Oh yeah, she's trying to rescue her scientist father from Loveless, who has kidnapped the world's brains to design his arachnoid kill-bot.

What worked about the campy old television show was that, despite its unbelievable gadgetry, it still had one foot (all right, maybe only a toe) firmly planted in historical reality. "WWW" is so far-fetched (a black secret agent in the racist deep South of the 1860s?) and implausibly futuristic (flying saw blades that act like heat-seeking missiles?) that it has to work twice as hard to make the fanciful premise work.

West's mission against Loveless is explained as a vendetta dating from the Civil War, when the nefarious Louisianan slaughtered our hero's parents in a settlement of freed slaves. As a child, West of course managed to escape on foot to Utah, where he was raised by wolves, I mean Indians.

Give it a rest.

Either make the whole dang thing one big, over-the-top cartoon (forgetting race and melodrama and feeble attempts at sense) or lose some of the bad puns ("No more Mr. Knife Guy"), stupid anachronisms like thong underwear and the expression "butt-ugly," and jokes about "Air Gordon" and wheelchair access.

Wasn't "The Avengers" punishment enough?… Expand

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FilipeNetoFeb 15, 2020

Grandiose, showy, but without content.

Inspired by a television series from the Sixties, this steampunk-inspired film tried to work but failed. The script, set in the years after the Civil War, is simple: two special government agents areGrandiose, showy, but without content.

Inspired by a television series from the Sixties, this steampunk-inspired film tried to work but failed.

The script, set in the years after the Civil War, is simple: two special government agents are sent to the Wild West to stop a mad, confederate scientist without legs who wants to overthrow President Ulysses Grant and avenge the southern defeat. Surreal, to say the least. But being a comedy with touches of nonsense, the lack of credibility is not a problem. The most obvious problem is the predictability, the poverty of the dialogues and also the bad direction of Barry Sonnenfeld, a director who has even given us very satisfying comedies like "MIB", "The Addams Family" or "RV". Here was a complete disaster.

Will Smith and Kevin Kline embody the two protagonists, but they never really shone or managed to give soul to the characters they had in hand. I think it is the director's fault, not so much the two actors, who have already proved their worth in other films. Salma Hayek is a good actress, but here she limited herself to using her body and being the hot girl in the film. Kenneth Branagh brought the great villain to life, but he must have bad memories of this film because he was really decadent and seemed to be hating what he was doing.

Technically, the film looks impressive and shows where the budget dollars were spent. A grand soundtrack gives the film an unpleasant feeling of smugness, as if the whole film feels better than what it is. The special effects and CGI are great and the mechanisms created for the film, in the best "steampunk" style, are impressive but leave doubts about their practical effectiveness. Still, grandiose and look good on the screen. Equally well done were the sets, costumes and choice of filming locations, with incredible settings like the Grand Canyon.

Visually, the film is beautiful, it is impressive, but it is like a balloon: it can be big, it can be showy, but it only has air inside.… Expand

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JesseDillingerApr 25, 2023

Dumb movie, but it's entertaining. But for sure not a good movie. Watch it drunk, that'll be fun

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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