Wild Wild West

The only actor today who can induce me to pay up for a movie solely on the basis of his presence is Will Smith. For one thing, he is smart, handsome, and charming: your basic leading man virtues. But beyond that, he has an uncanny ability to give a movie exactly what it needs to succeed. He has extraordinary comic timing, the equal of anyone in movies today, yet is willing to subdue it if it is necessary to the plot. He can convey gravity, panic, and fear in addition to the confidence any leading man must be able to exude effortlessly. In short, if I were female, I'd date him in a second.

Will Smith is, of course, a large part of what makes "Wild Wild West" succeed in its appointed task of entertaining summer moviegoers. Some may see "WWW" as a blatant attempt to repeat the success of "Men in Black," just because they have the same star and director, they both involve giant bugs and evil guys with accents, they both aspire to set sunglasses trends (we'll see how it goes with "WWW"), and they both feature a theme song which involves Will Smith rapping over a beat the Trackmasters lifted without shame and unaltered from a classic funk jam. The most important thing they share, though, apart from these passing superficialities, is their atmosphere: a certain quirky-comedic-action ethos which, it must be admitted, "Men in Black" sustained more effectively than "Wild Wild West" does. Sometimes "WWW" descends into predictability, sometimes its characters seem a bit unimaginatively written, sometimes the inherent contradictions in a black US Army investigator and a white US Marshal attempting to take out the insane owner/operator of a giant mechanical tarantula in 1869 seem about to collapse. "Men in Black" was completely pitch-perfect, gloriously so; "Wild Wild West" sometimes briefly loses itself in silliness or tedium.

Still, there is a whole lot to like here. Smith delivers himself of another impressive performance, posessed of all the virtues I described above and still having a certain chemistry with his costars. (Smith's character, by the way, is treated to a totally realistic amount of racism, in my opinion, which he handles with the good graces that are attainable by any man packing at least six guns on his person at all times.) Kevin Kline may be somewhat surprisingly cast as the brainy guy to Smith's gunslinger (one does not associate anyone who has played Hamlet with action films), yet he seems to relish his role and all his punchlines zing. Kenneth Branagh (what did I say about playing Hamlet?) also is totally engaged as the intelligent, evil, legless Southern villain; his exchanges with Smith trading implied insults about Smith's skin color and Branagh's disability are remarkable in that they seem not to have sprung fully and artificially formed from some screenwriter's pen, but actually seem to be the verbal jousting of two intelligent adversaries in the heat of signifying battle. Salma Hayek is impressive in her role as Hot Chick #1, although there is really not much for her to do besides be attractive (and, like I said, she's impressive at it). There is also this much-hyped quartet of supermodels who form Branagh's aides (Hot Chicks #2-5), and this is one time to believe the hype.

The effects, particularly the lumbering mechanical tarantula, spewing steam from its boilers and with the sounds of creaking metal and straining cable attending its every movement, are entertaining. You care about the characters, you laugh at the jokes, the fights are all enjoyable, and the finale is satisfyingly drawn out and athletic and even features Smith getting off a line as he kills one of the boss's mechanically enhanced henchmen worthy of mid-80s Arnold Schwartzenegger for its memorable punning lameness. So it's not "Men in Black." Very few films are. This film is the most carefree fun I've seen all summer, and it probably will retain that distinction as gross teen comedies and overbudgeted horror splatterfests flood the market in its wake. What more do you want?

Attractive Man Count: 1.

Attractive Woman Count: 5.

Overall Grade: A-. Plus the theme song is actually better than "MiB"'s was.

I have got to get me one of these!...mechanical tarantulas Lindemann

I think I may have liked this movie more than anyone else in America, or at least more than anyone else who wrote about it. Who cares. I'm a less generous grader than I was in 1999, but I'm still generous. Why one should not take a similarly forgiving approach to the failings of both independent cinema and corporate pabulum is beyond me. Of course, I was an econ major, and thus I consider the pursuit of profit a healthy occupation.

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