Just got back from THE WILD WILD WEST... A movie that has had a troubled ‘net history’. Bad buzz from screenings, ineffective (for me) trailers and a movie with an attitude just crying to be bad mouthed... but ya know what?

This isn’t “THE AVENGERS” or “HUDSON HAWK” or “THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES” or “BATMAN AND ROBIN”. This isn’t a wholesale disaster. The movie doesn’t scrape the cinematic scum from the filmic commode. Nope.

But then, it’s not particularly great either.

Instead it is, for me, a bit of an entertaining film made up of moments.

I anticipated getting ready to let Will Smith have it with both barrels. I was fully prepared to write the most hateful diatribe against an actor I could muster... But Will would not let me. He’s just too damn charming. He plays his Jim West as a Timothy Dalton JAMES BOND with a dash of Roger Moore. His verbal banter with Kenneth Branagh is fantastic, though his physical fighting was too ‘edited’ for my tastes. In the post Hong Kong/Matrix universe of wires and digital stuntmen... Will, frankly doesn’t come across as a Sean Connery whupper of asses. Instead he’s a bit like Jar Jar in his action scenes... Sort of dumb-lucking his way through them.

I liked Jim West. Anytime somebody was about to call him a ‘nigge..’ BONK, he’d knock hell out of them. Anytime the word ‘boy..” was used, KeerRACK somebody’s skull was cracking. He also has no qualms about KILLING.

Now I’m gonna go back and forth between things that worked and didn’t work in this film, so you can get the sort of schizophrenic feeling of how the moments could swing from one extreme to the other.

I like Kevin Kline.... sometimes. And this was not one his better moments for me. In fact the level of his badness is hard for me to put into words. Imagine if you shuffled ON HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE’s James Bond with CASINO ROYALE’s James Bond as a side kick. Kline is a buffoon in WWW. His entrance in the film is TERRIBLE! It is neither funny nor cool to me. Instead it falls completely flat. The whatever it was he was doing on stage was one of the most forgettable stage performances in history. I kept wishing we would have been treated to the style and grace in the order of Lili Von Schtupp. Alas.... His character has ZERO chemistry with Will Smith in this film. As strange as it seems, I kinda wished during the film that Artemus had been played by... Say Don Cheadle. Now I’m not saying this in a, “a white dude and a black dude just don’t cut it sort of way,” but for me... In this universe of THE WILD WILD WEST, I felt that Will Smith was alone. Kevin Kline never once seemed to admire a thing that Will Smith did or felt. Kevin just seemed to exist... point blank... He just took up time on screen, had no character definition... No reason to exist other than to push buttons... not emotional buttons mind you, but tangible ones... the mechanical types. And after the 8th one... well even this becomes routine.

The characters had two radically different ways of doing things. One was through the front door with guns blazing and charm flying... the other was in a corset or behind crepe hair or with a belly bladder. Will’s character had some actual depth, a bit of motivation and always moved forward.

For me, the thought of Don Cheadle playing the intellectual, costume wearing Artemis intrigued me. Imagine having two lawmen in the old west, post-Civil War. Both working in the South. One is not ashamed of who he is or the color of his skin. He’ll walk right in the middle of a buncha redneck bastards and call em out, while the other (Artemus) hid under make-up. Turning himself white, adding the breasts... trying to be anything but who he is. Maybe not ashamed, but taking pride in being able to infiltrate the highest WHITE society and unravel it from within without so much as a bullet fired, would say... fill him with pride and accomplishment. But Kline can’t cut the mustard here.

Well... they tried it with Kevin Kline... but his character came across as ludicrous with no soul in his eyes and a blank face whilst Will Smith came across as the hero, no matter the skin color. HELLO! Both are HEROES!

Ok, ok ok ok... Back to the good.

Kenneth Branagh. Sir, I love you in movies. Branagh is a jewel in character roles, and as the legless LOVELESS, I do believe I have found my favorite Branagh character yet. Every single moment he spends on screen screams coolness. His accent will undoubtedly chew on some people’s ears till they bleed, but to mine... It was the belligerent over the top rousing Senator Calhoun feeling, just shy of FOGHORN LEGHORN but oh so gloriously over the top. All of my favorite moments of this film have Branagh together with Will Smith (with the notable exception of the belly-dance sequence which was one of the greatest embarrassments on film I’ve seen in quite some time. Reminded me of the Michael Lerner dance number in THE MOD SQUAD)

Kenneth’s Arliss Loveless is the best Bond villain in a couple of decades. He chews the scenery and is always the object of focus even when he’s got a giant mechanical spider shooting flames from it’s flame shooter thingee (sorry for the technical terms).

Now back to the bad. WHEW! Man, I can’t believe I’m gonna harp on the beautiful lovely Salma Hayek but my god what a catastrophe. Her character is simply non-existent. She pops up enough to beckon the question, “Why is she here?” But then gone again so quickly that you go, “Where did she go?” And depending who in the aisle asks the question, another person may very well answer, “Who really gives a shit?”

She is strictly eye-candy in the film. Now I have to admit to admiring the open air ass cheeks of Salma Hayek with a fondness akin to that of seeing a scoop of triple chocolate set in a cinnamin waffle cone. Both are simply delicious... and judging from my waist, three guess which I’ve been partaking in.

However, it feels as though someone has taken Marilyn Monroe and placed her as a chorus line hussy who is completely unaware of her charms... BUT not in that.... ‘oh baby I gotta get some of that’ way. Quite honestly they diffused her of her charisma... She doesn’t feel sensual in this film. She doesn’t walk with the confidence that she wields the greatest weapon to face mankind... and it doesn’t shoot lead or brimstone. Before using Salma Hayek in a movie again, will somebody PLEASE take a look at DESPERADO and see how to treat her with the camera. In this setting I kept being reminded of how much cooler Raquel Welch was in the west.

Salma is taking some high profile roles, but... They just are not doing anything for her. It seems they are all playing to her weaknesses and completely abandoning the charm she so easily wields in person.

Back to the good...

The design of this film is just gorgeous. We have to hail Bo Welch and Tom Duffield as well as the costume design of Deborah Lynn Scott. The film is really really beautiful. Everything having to do with Branagh’s Arliss Loveless and his universe is breathtaking. From his look to the mechanical stuff to his headquarters to his women. The only mechanical thingee I don’t like is the flying device, which I preferred in YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES.

The beauty of Victorian gadgetry is one of my most favorite aspects of the old Jules Verne, H.G. Wells universe. I love the concept of old fantastical equipment that was perhaps lost in the shrouds of time. Now while I really really love the various mechanized stuff, this throws the film in competition with movies like George Pal’s THE TIME MACHINE, Disney’s 20,000 LEAGUES BENEATH THE SEA, Harryhausen’s MYSTERIOUS ISLAND and FIRST MEN IN THE MOON. And at that level it loses, simply because the lack of elegance... and one of the problems the film has that keeps it from taking it off (besides Kevin Kline’s abysmal performance) is Elmer Bernstein’s score.

Alright, this is where I begin feeling the stones being hurled at me, but listen. I like the score as a stand alone. Away from the film, I think it works, but inside of the film... it just isn’t WESTERNY ENOUGH. I mean.... This is Elmer Bernstein. The man who scored some of John Wayne’s big scores... He scored one of the absolute greatest western scores of all time, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN... And going into this film where I sensed the potential of that classic Western theme... but a possible mixing of the awe and grandeur of say... THE TEN COMMANDMENTS or the comedic beats of GHOSTBUSTERS.... Oh man, I was expecting truly great things from this score. In fact... Against all the bad buzz, I was pulling for Bernstein to save the movie. And he does... but only to a degree, and then he hurts it. The score when West is atop Branagh’s train.... it felt ‘ho hum’. And... ya know... That’s Jim West fighting with a bad guy on top of a speeding train and the score felt... ‘ho hum’? Eeeek!

Now just so ya know, I’m not a follower of THE WILD WILD WEST television show. I haven’t watched tons of them, but my father is a devout follower of Jim West and Artemus. He really disliked the film. He was offended not by Will Smith, but in the goofing around fighting where he seemed to simply luck out. “JIM WEST doesn’t just luck out and bungle around! Jim West is calm and cool and kicks ass. Artemus was the bungler,” to quote Father Geek. He liked the cool effects stuff, but hated the mano a mano fist fights of the film. And frankly I really do agree.

If Barry and Will are going to make ALI.... Well, there is going to need to be some modifying of their theory of fight choreography. Because in this film.... like in MEN IN BLACK, it’s sloppy and lazy and unclear as to the motion of the scenes.

So... If that tells you anything about my feelings on THE WILD WILD WEST, I hope you at least get the feeling that if you do go see it... There is the potential to enjoy the film. It is not an Atomic Bomb. But it isn’t a real completely enjoyable film either. I will be seeing it again though this Thursday up in Minneapolis/St Paul as part of that CONvergence convention I’m going to. (Takes place this Thursday through Sunday)

I feel about this movie, alot like I felt with THE MUMMY. I wanted it to be more than what it was. I felt there were a couple of TERRIBLE performances, though Will Smith and Kenneth Branagh are better than any performances in THE MUMMY. The effects are groovy CGI, but it is CGI and you can feel that. But here, they feel a bit like a Pulp cover moving so that’s kinda cool. The women in both are disappointments. Sidekicks are terrible. Overall fun, but not completely satisfying. It made me come home and watch 20,000 LEAGUES BENEATH THE SEA.... What a great movie that is!