Wild Wild West 1999

Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune: The western deserves better. So do Smith, Kline and Branagh. So do Hayek and Sonnenfeld. And maybe even, heaven help us, so does The Wild, Wild West. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: Few things are potentially more dangerous to the health of a studio picture than giving a director and a star enough rope to hang themselves. Read more

Jay Boyar, Orlando Sentinel: [Wild Wild West] is this year's Godzilla, Avengers and Spice World all rolled into one. It's the disappointment of the summer, the worst TV adaptation in recent memory and, almost needless to say, a fiasco of cosmic proportions. Read more

Desmond Ryan, Philadelphia Inquirer: A Smith blockbuster is as much a Fourth of July tradition as parades, barbecue picnics and patriotic speeches, but Wild Wild West is a wet firecracker. Read more

Sharon Pian Chan, Seattle Times: It will probably make buckets of money, but as this summer's action movie, Wild Wild West only gets mild. Read more

Richard Schickel, TIME Magazine: Wild, Wild West poses this not very pressing question: Can a comedy costing something north of $100 million hope to succeed solely on the basis of special effects, cross-dressing and a vertically challenged villain? Read more

Susan Stark, Detroit News: Leaves you wondering how things could have gone this wrong for a team of first-rate talents. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: Wild Wild West deserves only one wild. Read more

Bob Thomas, Associated Press: Too many elements remain unexplained, and it can't really take four screenwriters to come up with this for Smith, while he's battling five assassins: "That's it! No more Mr. Nice Guy.'' Read more

Janet Maslin, New York Times: Ruled by increasingly ghoulish special effects, it leaves reality so far behind that its storytelling would be arbitrary even by comic-book standards, and its characters share no common ground or emotional connection. Read more

Rod Dreher, New York Post: Heaven knows he gives it his best, but not even the smart, sexy and immensely likable Smith can save this awful Barry Sonnenfeld picture from the oblivion it surely deserves. Read more

Andrew Sarris, New York Observer: Forget all the ruinously expensive special effects. They're not worth a minute of your time, much less two hours of mind-boggling mediocrity. Read more

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader: Sonnenfeld's cheerful irreverence keeps it reasonable. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: Having seen Wild Wild West, a retro-sci-fi Western comedy that tries to get laughs from a double amputee in a steam-powered wheelchair, I must ask: Where's the rest of the movie? The funny part? Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: In the tradition of such unwatchable blockbusters as Armageddon, Con Air, and Godzilla comes Wild Wild West, yet another cinematic Spruce Goose that illustrates how bigger is rarely better. Read more

Paul Clinton (CNN.com), CNN.com: The result? A cautionary tale about boys and their toys and what happens when a star, Will Smith, and a director, Barry Sonnenfeld, are given way too much money to play with. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: In this noisy, joyless, bizarrely static fiasco, every element on screen seems to let the air out of the one before it. Read more

Ray Conlogue, Globe and Mail: This film is fun most of the time. Read more

Manohla Dargis, L.A. Weekly: The credits for Wild Wild West are mostly exemplary, and yet the screenplay is swill. Read more

Andrea C. Basora, Newsweek: Sonnenfeld's sardonic voice appears to have been trapped in the web of the giant iron spider that rampages through the last part of the film. Read more

Terrence Rafferty, New Yorker: The movie is exhausting, utterly without feeling, and pointless -- though Smith looks great in his Western outfit. Read more

Peter Rainer, New York Magazine/Vulture: Smith's hip-hop aloofness and Kline's Master Thespian routines don't mesh. Read more

Jami Bernard, New York Daily News: For maximum entertainment, a movie can't afford to waste so much time being its own carnival barker, relentlessly trying to drum up interest. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: While its television counterpart will continue to live on in syndication, this version is headed for Boot Hill. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Wild Wild West is a comedy dead zone. You stare in disbelief as scenes flop and die. The movie is all concept and no content; the elaborate special effects are like watching money burn on the screen. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: There's so much going on at every moment that the movie keeps you going on visual stimulation alone, and that kind of pleasure should never get short shrift. Read more

Bob Graham, San Francisco Chronicle: The ace in the hole in Wild Wild West is Shakespearean Kenneth Branagh as the villain, Loveless. Read more

Jeff Strickler, Minneapolis Star Tribune: There are six writers and eight producers listed in the credits. Is it any wonder that it feels like an amalgamation of mismatched bits and pieces? Read more

Trevor Johnston, Time Out: This monument to the vacuous excesses of chequebook cinema highlights the desperation of those who throw money at the screen hoping it will buy them a blockbuster. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Variety: Some very talented people stub their collective toes quite elaborately and expensively in Wild Wild West. Read more

Amy Taubin, Village Voice: Extremely stupid and incompetent. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: The Wild, Wild West is a rambling wreck from computer tech and a helluva souvenir - that is, for those interested in artifacts representing the American movie at its worst. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Unfortunately, Smith's abundant charm is squandered by making him play second fiddle to a bunch of dumb machines that look like rejected maquettes from a Star Wars brainstorming session. Read more