Review of Wild Wild West (1999) by Kai82 — 01 Sep 2020

An entertaining movie with flaws that is fast forgotten by the viewer. It received a lot of negative ratings and many golden raspberries. While being no masterpiece or good movie it is nowhere near the worst movies of all times.

It is a western action comedy with steampunk elements and mad science. It is the story of James West played by Will Smith and Artemus Gordon played by Kevin Kline. Together these different characters have to uncover a plot with mayor impacts for the Wild West and the USA (sorry cant give more details because of spoilers).

The setting should be a mayor plus but it feels like half measures. With this I mean they should have lean more in one or the other direction. More steampunk, action or more western. The mixture strangely dilutes all parts.

There are many good scenes but strangely again all did not work well enough. The acting is nearly the same. While delivering the characters as intended it feels a bit lifeless. I think that in some scenes the actors were bored or annoyed by the script.

Then there is the humor and dialog. There are nearly no good lines and not enough humor that works in the movie. I think with an improved script and better dialog garnered with humor it could be a hit.

Shanghai Noon did it far better in each category in the following year. Overall this is watchable but fast forgotten. I recommend Shanghai Noon if you like western action comedies instead or the classics by Sergio Leone or the John Wayne movies instead.