By Chris Snellgrove | Published
Ever think about Will Smith’s biggest mistake? I’m not talking about his marriage, or I’ll probably go to my grave trying to figure out how that sh*show really works. No, what am I talking about? The Wild Wild Westa 1999 blockbuster that was a critical and commercial flop. On paper, this movie had everything you need. The film had a big budget, impressive special effects, and was directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, the man who brought us ’90s bangers like The Addams Family again Black Men. what am i talking about The Wild Wild West played by Will Smith, which he is Black Men he was cemented as a bankable action star.
However, this film was completely dead on arrival. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a critical score of 16 percent, low enough to make recent flops like Supergirl look carefully. So, what happened here? How did a summer blockbuster from the hottest director and actor of the ’90s become the hardest punchline in Hollywood? It all started with a script where four (!!!) screenwriters couldn’t figure out what kind of movie they wanted to make. And it ended with a fight against a mechanical spider that the producer spent years trying to evolve into the biggest Big Bad of the ’90s.
Have a gun, Will Babble
The Wild Wild West it’s a loose adaptation of the ’60s show The Wild Wild West. The plot involves an Army captain (played by Will Smith) and a US Marshal (played by Kevin Kline) hunting down a former Confederate general who killed the captain’s parents (played by Ted Levine). Along the way, they encounter a major enemy: a former Confederate scientist (played by Kenneth Branagh) turned techno-terrorist. Our two heroes are ultimately the only ones who can stop this mad scientist’s plan to divide America, effectively ending the Confederate Army’s mission to destroy the United States as we know it.
Based on the cast, The Wild Wild West it seemed like it was going to be a winner. Its main star was Will Smith, dear The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air a student who had become a rising movie star thanks to the success of films like this one Black Men again Independence Day. His costar was Kevin Kline, a veteran actor and Oscar winner. Their Big Bad was played by Kenneth Branagh, a man who devoted his life to bringing Shakespeare’s most complex dramas to life. Heck, it even stars Salma Hayek, a talented actress that no one can take their eyes off of From Dusk Till Dawn.
How the West Was (Not) Sweet
Note that this was the highest budget ($170 million) Western in a decade when cowboy films (such as He can be forgiven, A tombstoneagain The Quick and the Dead) made a big comeback, and it seemed like it The Wild Wild West it was destined for greatness. But the film lost money and was complete the body by critics. Where did it all go wrong? As usual, it started with writing. This blockbuster inexplicably had four different screenwriters, and it often seemed like they were all pulling the film in different directions. This was very evident in the joke The Wild Wild Westwhich moved from being completely deaf to being completely lame.
The biggest change from the original TV show was making Captain Jim West a black man. That was going well into the ’90s, but writers kept adding to it even worse racial humor in film. For example, Will Smith’s character escapes a lynch mob by making a strange smooth speech that includes complimenting his Klan-style attacker’s hoods. Oh, and when one of them says he wants to teach his character a lesson, Smith sarcastically replies, “Don’t take white women’s bums to the big redneck dance?” There’s nothing inherently wrong with racial humor, though The Wild Wild West you made the big mistake of just being painfully he made fun of it.
The south will eat again
Another irony is how hard this movie tried to damage the style of James Bond, an actor whose ’90s revival no. GoldenEye. Unfortunately, that sucks, too. The spy banter isn’t even worthy of the worst 007 movie. In addition, gadgets (and me Goddoes this movie have a lot of gadgets) is not cool instead of cool. And, if you were in danger of thinking this was a cool spy movie, Smith ruins it with another of his signature moves: the ending compliments a rap song that narrates the entire film in an even more forgettable way.
The Wild Wild West failed to be a Burning Saddles-style of ethnic comedy, and failed even more at being a 007-esque spy thriller. Sadly, it failed in its last attempt, too: to be a steampunk-powered sci-fi Western. This kind of crossover is best illustrated by the climactic battle against the mechanical spider, which feels as over the top as it is unnecessary. The original TV show didn’t have anything like this, and the “robot spider” is hardly a cowboy’s natural enemy. How did this end up here? Simple: producer Jon Peters had spent a lot of time in the late 1990s trying to put a giant spider on film, and done to wait.
Do Anything Spider Can
Back in the late ’90s, Warner Bros. was in serious discussions with Neil Gaiman about an adaptation. Sandman in the featured film. According to the author, Jon Peters wanted to include a giant spider in the film. In 2002, Clerks director Kevin Smith revealed that while writing Superman Lives, Peters asked for Iron Man to fight a giant spider. That Superman movie was officially canceled in 1998, too The Wild Wild West it came out a year later. Considering that Peters produced this failed blockbuster, it seems reasonable to assume that he is the reason behind the stupid battle against the giant robot arachnid.
This is unfortunate because, in the hands of other creators, The Wild Wild West it should have been a the art of art. It was a remake of a classic TV show with a hit director and an insanely talented cast. Unfortunately, the writers couldn’t decide whether they were making a dark comedy, a spy thriller, or a sci-fi adventure. The result was a film with such an identity crisis that it destroyed the entire franchise. But are you interested in watching a train wreck unfold, or maybe you want to return to the glory days of Will Smith’s career? Maybe, like Smith, you need something to watch while your wife is with her boyfriend? The good news then: The Wild Wild West currently streaming for free on Tubi.
