By Robert Scucci
| Published
If you’re wondering what a $170 million dollar B-movie looks like, then I need to direct your attention to 1999’s Will Smith-starring Wild Wild West. Boasting an all-star cast including, but not limited to, Will Smith, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Salma Hayek, Ted Levine, and M. Emmet Walsh, Wild Wild West received a scathing one-star review from Roger Ebert, who stated that this budget-bloated steampunk adventure outing felt like watching “money burn on the screen.” And the sad thing is that Ebert wasn’t wrong in his assessment, but I think he loses points for not knowing how to have some fun with this one.
To put it simply, Wild WIld West isn’t a great movie, but it’s so ambitious that you can’t help but respect its production values – even if it’s considered one of the biggest missteps of Will Smith’s career.
Over Ambitious And Underappreciated
At face-value, Wild Wild West wins a considerable amount of points for its special effects and willingness to jam as much complicated steampunk technology into its premise as humanly possible.
Playing out like a classic chase movie where the good guys have to race the clock to take out the bad guy, there’s not much meat to its story, but its over ambitious execution, at the very least, makes worth looking at because where else are you going to see a giant mechanical spider controlled by a wheelchair-bound creep with nu metal facial hair wreaking havoc in post Civil War America?
According to Kevin Smith, producer Jon Peters was insistent on somehow working the giant, eight-legged monstrosity into Wild Wild West after having the idea shot down while working on a Superman Film, and once again while developing a proposed feature-length adaptation of The Sandman. While this unwieldy arachnid doesn’t really service Wild Wild West’s screenplay by any stretch of the imagination, I’m glad he stuck to his guns because the entertainment value in imagining those conversations during Wild Wild West’s development phases must have been the stuff of legend.
Think about it … the dude wanted a giant mechanical spider in the movie, and by golly he finally got it despite all of the pushback suggesting how stupid of an idea it was. If that doesn’t command the utmost respect from moviegoers, then I don’t want to know what does.
Chemistry Can’t Be Ignored
While every single character in Wild Wild West is rooted in hyperbole and raunchy humor, there’s something to be said about Will Smith, who was so unstoppable at the time of its production that he’d be a fool to say no given the film’s $170 million budget, as well as the marketing machine behind it.
Fully committing to his role as James T. “Jim” West,” Smith’s exchanges with Kevin Kline’s Artemus Gordon as they travel by horse, train, and (shudders) Air Gordon while ushering Salma Hayek’s Rita Escobar to safety after getting kidnapped by Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh) are most definitely low-brow, but I wouldn’t have it any other way because nothing about Wild Wild West is practical or makes any sense, so you might as well have some fun with it.
At the very least, I was endlessly amused when Artemus referred to Rita’s presence as a “breast of fresh air,” before correcting himself and saying “a breath of fresh ass,” while Jim West stared him down like he’s some kind of idiot despite his obvious talent for engineering and inventing impractical contraptions to help them with their mission, whatever that may be. Pepper in some jabs about Loveless’ missing legs as he fires rounds from his steam-powered wheelchair, and you have a movie that’s so ridiculous that its many missteps almost seem forgivable when you consider what they were trying to accomplish while totally missing the mark.
Streaming Wild Wild West On Tubi
Wild Wild West is the perfect example of a movie that sucked up an insane amount of resources to produce that nobody asked for. But when such a monolithic undertaking is thrust upon the masses, you have to talk about it because there’s something so poetic about a movie that cost $170 million to make that went on to win five Golden Raspberry Awards and suffers from a 16 percent critical score on Rotten Tomatoes. I, for one, am glad that this action-western-steam-punk-adventure-buddy-comedy exists because sometimes you just want to watch money burn like the Joker, as long as it’s not yours.
As of this writing, you can stream Wild Wild West for free on Tubi.
