WILD WILD WEST (1999)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I recently said that I found THE FIRST POWER "amiably stupid" rather than "offensively stupid." but WILD WILD WEST is the opposite.

It didn't have to be that way, of course. The 1965-69 WILD WILD WEST teleseries took a bizarre premise-- two American secret service agents fighting super-genius masterminds with a Bond-like arsenal of gimmicks-- and made it a charming if formulaic program. Whereas the James Bond in all media focused only upon one main character, the WEST series cleverly figured out a way to balance two heroic types: one the "tough guy," played by Robert Conrad, and the other the "trickster," played by Ross Martin. Despite their differences, the respective characters, James West and Artemis Gordon, were shown as being collegial comrades, occasionally one-upping each other but always having one another's backs. The six writers credited with the 1999 film, though, decided that the best way to go was the tried-and-true "mismatched partner" trope.

WEST-the-film was in its time often criticized for the improbable casting of Will Smith in the role of James West, a super-tough Union army officer who's supposed to be able to operate with impunity in post-Civil War America. This improbability is definitely a narrative problem, insofar as the script doesn't play up the improbability, but instead presents the concept with straight-faced intensity. However, some early actors considered for the James West character included such actors as Mel Gibson and Tom Cruise. Such casting would have eliminated the situation of a Black secret agent in late 1800s America. However, all else being equal, that film probably would still have pursued the same sterile trope that the finished movie did, and so would probably have been just as bad.

The plot: Confederate general "Bloodbath" McGrath is separately pursued by both army captain James West (Smith) and U.S. marshal Artemis Gordon (Kevin Kline), and they get in each other's way trying to capture their quarry. (It doesn't help that Gordon disguises himself as a female prostitute and West criticizes the marshal's imitation of femininity.) However, the disputatious duo are forced to work together by President Grant, who wants them to figure out who's stealing a bunch of American scientists. This new concern dovetails with the pursuit of McGrath, when the agents learn that the Confederate general answers to a mad genius, Doctor Loveless (Kenneth Branagh). In addition, a toothsome young woman named Rita (Salma Hayek) attaches herself to the heroes, telling them that one of the missing scientists is her father. So, because both men are warm for her form, they let her come along on their investigation.

Loveless kills McGrath and slaughters a bunch of his diehard Confederate troops (one of the few scenes that has a little gravitas), because the evil genius has a far more divisive plan than did the seceding South. As West and Gordon spy on Loveless, they learn that he wants to partition both the Union and all potential U.S. states into six parts, with Loveless controlling one portion while various European powers and the whole Native American populace will divide up the rest. Why Loveless has any regard for Native Americans when he's a total racist toward Blacks like James West is a mystery the script does not even try to reconcile. Loveless's means of bending the Union to his will is a gigantic robot spider, constructed by all those scientists he kidnapped, and of course West and Gordon overcome all their differences and work together to destroy the villain and his evil schemes.

It's hard to believe that director Barry Sonnenfeld had made such strong formula-flicks as the first MEN IN BLACK and the two ADDAMS FAMILY films in the same decade as WILD WILD WEST. Had I not known who directed WEST, I could have easily believed that it was some hack first-timer who was trying to imitate the worst "high-concept" tropes of earlier successful films. Every jokey conflict of West and Gordon is from hunger, and West's racial conflict with julep-sucking Southerner Loveless is undercut by the fact that Loveless is also "legless," tooling around all the time in some motorized wheelchair. Branagh is just as shrill and tedious as Smith and Kline, in marked contrast to the relative logic of the villains from the TV show. The rest of the actors have nugatory roles, including Hayek, though the one saving grace of the clumsy script is that NEITHER of the hot-to-trot heroes scored with the female lead.

Well, one of two saving graces: I did kind of like the design of the giant robot spider, even if the logic of using it to divide up the country is indeed lame. It's too bad the giant spider's agent didn't hold out to get him a better role than WILD WILD WEST.