Wild Wild West (1999)
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld
Had I seen this before: Yes, when it first came out
I'll be honest, what I was hoping for here was a sort of reverse-Tombstone situation wherein the weight of 23 years of everyone agreeing that this is a terrible movie would be somewhat at odds with the actual experience of watching it. After all, I think we can agree that movie audiences of 1999 truly did not know how good they had it, myself included, and it's possible that a reject from '99 would be a perfectly serviceable little piece of entertainment. So I went in armed with this optimism, a mild nostalgia for the summer I was 19, and a degree of comfort in the knowledge that my tolerance for Kenneth Branagh Doing Too Much is very high indeed.
Anyway, my apologies to the fine denizens of of the last century: you were right. It's pretty bad.
The most I laughed in regards to this movie was not at anything in the film itself, but rather at this fact from IMDb: "This movie underwent costly re-shoots in an attempt to inject some humor, after it was found that test audiences weren't sure if it was supposed to be a comedy." Hahahaha whoops! Oh dear. Well, I will say this for the final product: I was extremely clear on the fact that it was supposed to be a comedy. So they succeeded on that front.
To my 2022 mind, most of the problems with this movie were problems that plagued many, many studio comedies of the time, namely: racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, etc. A lot of punching down. A truly incredible, almost herculean amount of leering. Are you interested in watching every man on screen act as though they have never encountered boobs or butts before? You're in so much luck. Nary a female butt goes unremarked-upon. And then there is the fact that the top IMDb quote for this movie is just a scene where Will Smith and Kenneth Branagh exchange racist and ableist insults. And here's where I admit that I did not hate Branagh's villain, I mostly just hated that every single joke at his expense was about his disability rather than his being evil and having very bad ideas and an intentional facial hair situation that is, I think, fair game. It was also a terrible mistake, big mistake, huge, to double-cast Kevin Kline as both the president of the United States and a man who impersonates the president of the United States if you did not want this particular viewer to immediately start pining for a far superior film.
But this made me wonder why people at the time rejected this movie, because all the -isms and -phobias were pretty standard stuff in that era and didn't tend to sink comedies on their own. My best guess is that, like me, audiences spent a lot of the runtime asking themselves "Who is this movie for?" Many parts of it are extremely cartoonish--Bugs Bunny's and Inspector Gadget's prints are all over this thing--which makes it seem like it was made for children. Will Smith literally pulls the Bugs-dressed-as-a-sexy-lady-to-distract-the-villain move, punches are sometimes accompanied by a ringing bell sound effect, etc. But it's also doing the 90s/00s thing of reviving a television show from the 1960s, so the opening credits make it seem like it's trying to hit some boomer nostalgia, which in 1999 would be solidly middle-aged people. But it's also full of jokes that are pretty raunchy and don't especially seem right for either of those groups. It's like the villain is Yosemite Sam with Foghorn Leghorn's accent but he's a horrifying war criminal who brags pretty explicitly about his steampunk sex devices. So what it ends up feeling like is some producers getting as far as "Will Smith in a big budget summer movie" and reckoning everything else would just work itself out. A real Icarus-ass move, as it turns out.
Now here is the part where I reveal that, much like Kevin Kline's master of disguise secret agent, I have only been wearing the costume of someone who appropriately disliked this unfortunate mess of a film. In reality, despite everything listed above and more, I did not hate the experience of watching it overall. I certainly frowned and cringed and sighed a bit and did all the things one does. But, I dunno, Barry Sonnenfeld is a real director who knows how to put a movie together! It's visually pretty interesting, Smith and Kline are doing what they can (Kline in particular saves a handful of tough punchlines through sheer will), I'm sorry to say, again, that that Branagh kinda works for me here, and so does Ted Levine as a somewhat grotesque secondary villain. Poor Salma Hayek is saddled with an absolute non-character, but, you know....great gowns, beautiful gowns, etc. I have an unfortunate weakness for the steampunk aesthetic. Politics aside, of course, I like the weird black and white Confederate spider flag that Branagh designs. I don't want to say I'm feeling any sort of way about my country at the moment but the part of his evil plan that was just returning some parts of it to various corners of Europe was slightly intriguing. Maybe we roll it back a bit further? Like pre-15th century or so? (Happy Independence Day!) I like that the heroes have a "driver" who takes them places but he's a full-on train conductor. I like that one of Branagh's sexy lady henchmen (???) is named Munitia because she is in charge of guns, it's like a joke that wandered off of the Austin Powers set and got lost. I also love Monument Valley very much--it is basically the linchpin of this whole summer blog theme--and wish that it hadn't been relegated to obvious green screen.
Line I repeated quietly to myself lip-synced along with over the closing credits: "You don't wanna see my hand where my hip be at!"
Is it under two hours: Mercifully, yes
In conclusion: For me, this movie was much like the giant mechanical spider at its center--it definitely cost too much money to put together, it's clunky and unwieldy, it doesn't work very well or make much sense, but it is sort of interesting to look at for a while.
Beef Daube from The Kitchn
Hey, you know what this movie has going for it that many do not? A scene where a character actually cooks food and another character eats it and they discuss the culinary technique! Salma Hayek drops through the top of the train car via...sigh...giant spring (don't ask) and there is Kevin Kline, dishing up dinner, describing how cooking the beef in a daube, a French clay pot, causes it to be exceptionally tender. I don't have a daube but I do have a Staub, which is French, so it counts. And you know what? It made some damn tender beef. Salma, feel free to drop in any time.
Up next: We have this high school reunion to go to, and we need to show up in a really cool car
