Wild Wild West (1999)

Wild Wild West (1999)
Want to see a ridiculous Hollywood train wreck? Then watch Wild Wild West. This movie is notorious for being a disaster and boy does it live up to its reputation. Thanks to a heavy advertising campaign and star Will Smith, the movie ended up making its budget back in its worldwide gross. Keep in mind though that production budgets usually don't factor in the marketing budget which was probably expensive. Wild Wild West is an infamous example of "WTF Hollywood" and went on to win a lot of Razzie awards. The only thing this franchise non-starter launched was the silly but catchy theme song. And the best part about that is the sample from the song "I Wish" by Stevie Wonder!

I was about 10 years old when Wild Wild West came out in 1999 and remember that it was heavily marketed to kids with a line of Burger King toys and even a junior novelization! I saw the movie for the first time a few months ago and was surprised that the film contained sexual innuendo, ass shots, an attempted lynching, and a lot of racial jokes. Of course none of that made it into the trailer! Maybe if Wild Wild West decided to be a movie for kids or go all the way and be made for adults with an R rating it would've clicked. Instead they tried too hard to please everyone and in the process nobody was happy with the result. Speaking of the marketing, Salma Hayek is all over it but disappears about halfway through the movie. From the trailer I assumed she was a main character but she's not in the movie as much as you would expect and doesn't have much to do either.

I should mention that Wild Wild West was based on the 1960s TV show of the same name. Out of curiosity I watched a couple episodes of the show on YouTube and liked it a lot. It was playing off the popularity of both James Bond and Westerns at the time for fun, anachronistic stories along the lines of steampunk. The show was pretty violent for television which was actually why it was canceled despite doing well in the ratings. The show was light years better than this movie in every aspect. The episodes I saw even dealt with race relations in the Old West in a more respectful and nuanced way. Changing the race of Jim West for the movie was probably mistake since you can either go two ways with it. The first would be to ignore the racism the character would've faced during this time period, which would then make it the elephant in the room. The second is what Wild Wild West chooses, to engage it head on, but this comes with a lot of baggage that just shouldn't be there for what is supposed to be a mainstream action movie intended for audiences of all ages. Wild Wild West makes an attempt at a serious subplot with the New Liberty town of freed slaves but it doesn't work at all. The racial jokes like "I haven't seen him in a coon's age!" are just plain uncomfortable. Although Will Smith says he turned down the title role in Django Unchained because he "wasn't the lead," I can't help but wonder if his involvement in Wild Wild West was part of the reason.

Wild Wild West takes place in the late 1860s and is about gun slinging cowboy Jim West (Will Smith) and inventor/master of disguise Artemus Gordon (Kevin Kline) who are secret service agents. The pair are forced to team up in order to save President Grant from the evil ex-Confederate scientist Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh). It's clear the producers of this movie were hoping for director Barry Sonnenfeld and Will Smith to duplicate their success of Men in Black in a different franchise with Kline being the stand-in for Tommy Lee Jones. Both movies even had a Will Smith theme song and accompanying music video to go along with them. Will Smith isn't the problem with Wild Wild West, but lacks chemistry with Kevin Kline who didn't seem into the role. George Clooney was the original choice for Gordon and made the right decision by dropping out even though he probably would've been a better fit. I know that this isn't Kline's fault, but I didn't like how the movie cheated by having President Grant and Gordon impersonating Grant both played by Kline. The 60s show didn't cheat when it came to this so I don't know they had to do that in this movie.
Kenneth Branagh is hilarious as an over the top villain with a ridiculous Southern accent. His performance is enjoyable but Loveless never comes across as a serious threat as intended. I wonder if Branagh was originally considered for the role of Gordon, which would've made more sense, but somehow ended up as the villain.

Wild Wild West feels like a long movie but not much happens. I was surprised that it was only 106 minutes since it felt over two hours long. The movie doesn't really have a middle as it's basically two halves. We have the beginning and set-up for the story, which then leads to West and Gordon being stranded in the desert by Loveless. The two must work together to escape in order to stop Loveless in the climax and that is pretty much it. It doesn't help that plot points are brought up then dropped and never followed up on such as West telling Gordon he was raised by Indians after the death of his family. I thought this would lead to a group of Native Americans helping them out or West using something he learned from then but instead its just forgotten about. These problems are probably due to the fact that this movie had six writers! The jokes are hit or miss but actually hit more than I expected. However, a lot of the humor does not come from simply being funny since lines like "East meets West!" and the "That's a man's head" scene are so cheesy and bizarre that I couldn't help but laugh. A lot of the humor simply falls flat like "Air Gordon" or when West tries to emulate Gordon's cross-dressing shenanigans.

While on the subject of strange moments in this movie, I must briefly discuss the giant mechanical spider. Jon Peters produced Wild Wild West and earlier in the 90s tried to get a Superman movie made. Peters hired Kevin Smith to write a script and one of his demands was that Superman must fight a giant spider. Peters apparently has a thing for spiders and eventually got his fix by putting it in Wild Wild West. While I get that Loveless has an obsession with spiders to overcompensate for the loss of his legs, I don't understand why there are a lot of sheep in this movie too. But these things are what make Wild Wild West a watchable bad movie, and even entertaining at times, as you never know what crazy thing will happen next!

There was an earlier attempt to bring The Wild Wild West to the silver screen in the early 90s. Mel Gibson was attached to star as Jim West with Richard Donner in line to direct and Shane Black to write the script. Donner actually directed a few episodes of the show and Mel Gibson even resembles the original actor who played Jim West, so this movie probably would've ended up a lot better than what we actually got. Donner and Gibson decided to make a movie out of a different Western TV show and did Maverick in 1994 instead. Hollywood has been all about rebooting franchises lately but I bet they wouldn't touch The Wild Wild West with a ten foot pole. I think this is a shame as the original TV series could still provide source material for a good movie and a reboot of the 60s show would make more sense then the seemingly endless remakes of 80s flicks.
Fun Facts:
The official website for Wild Wild West is still up here. Looks like it hasn't been updated since 1999!
Director Barry Sonnenfeld started his career as a cinematographer and worked on several films directed by the Cohen brothers. Acclaimed cinematographer Michael Ballhaus did the cinematography for Wild Wild West.
5/10

Spring Wrap-up Part One

Nuns on the Run (1990)
I watched this movie with my brother on a whim. Nuns on the Run stars a post-Monty Python Eric Idle and a pre-Hagrid Robbie Coltrane. Idle and Coltrane play criminals trying to get out of a life of crime but in the process have to hide out in a convent while disguised as nuns. As you could've guessed, wacky hijinks ensue!
Nuns on the Run was written and directed by Jonathan Lynn. While Lynn is not a household name, he has directed several well known movies such as Clue, My Cousin Vinny, and The Whole Nine Yards. I actually haven't seen any of those yet but will eventually!
There are some funny ideas here but it doesn't work overall. The pacing isn't great and there are a bunch of filler scenes. It probably would've worked better as a few independent sketches (such as the when Idle and Coltrane are in a packed parking lot trying to decide which car to steal) than a feature length film.
This counts as a nunsploitation movie, right?!
4/10

What About Bob? (1991)
I've talked about a few Bill Murray movies on this blog in the past so here is another one. Although I had heard good things about this film I hadn't seen it until now. Murray is great as usual but the real star here is Richard Dreyfuss as his reactions to "Bob" make Murray even funnier.
I realized later on that The Cable Guy is similar in that the main character's both have an off-beat obsessive "stalker" who just wants to hang out with them all the time. The relationship between Bob and his therapist is also kinda like that of Dennis the Menace and Mr. Wilson. Except that Dennis would be an adult in this version!
What About Bob? was directed by Frank Oz. Yes, *that* Frank Oz of Sesame Street, Muppets, and Yoda fame. This is the third movie I've seen that Oz has directed. The other two are Death at a Funeral (2007) and The Muppets take Manhattan, both of which I have written about earlier on this blog.
7/10

Man on the Moon (1999)
I'm not a fan of Jim Carrey though I don't dislike him either. I just generally don't go out of my way to see his movies. However, I'm glad I saw this one as it features a great performance by Jim Carrey as actor and comedian Andy Kaufman. He even won a Golden Globe for this role, although could not get an Oscar nomination. The film received no Oscar nominations which is a bit surprising since it does feel like an Oscar bait type movie.
A biographical film seems tough to make as you must condense a person's life into a mere two hours. It was an even more difficult task in this case as what Andy Kaufman was most famous for (his role as Latka Gravas) was probably the least interesting thing about the man.
I felt that the movie focused too much on Andy Kaufman's cancer and death. Kaufman was diagnosed in late November 1983 and died in May 1984. Obviously this is important, but he wasn't sick that long and died pretty quick. On a similar note we we could've had more about Kaufman's life before he was discovered as a comedian.
There are a few anachronisms such as the movie's depiction of Kaufman's Carnegie Hall show being performed after he was diagnosed with cancer, but it fits in with Kaufman's life as a showman who would blend reality and fantasy together. The opening scene of the movie even features Carrey in character as Kaufman stating that parts of "his" life have been changed!
As a biopic about an off-beat personality I couldn't help but be reminded of Tim Burton's Ed Wood. Although Ed Wood and Andy Kaufman were different in several ways, both were true artists who managed accomplish their visions despite of the obstacles of mainstream TV and film-making.
Many actors and other famous people who knew the real Kaufman such as wrestler Jerry Lawlor, Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels, late night talk show host David Letterman, and the cast of Kaufman's TV show Taxi are in the movie as themselves. Danny DeVito (a cast member of Taxi) plays a large role as George Shapiro, Kaufman's manager, but doesn't play himself. There could've been a fun meta moment along the lines of the "color blind" scene in Ed Wood but I guess they didn't want to confuse the audience too much.

Even though I think of Courtney Love as a musician and not an actress, she did a nice job playing Kaufman's girlfriend. If I didn't know who she was I would've assumed she was an actress not famous for anything else.
R.E.M. performed most of the songs for the Man on the Moon soundtrack and did a great job as usual. Their title track was actually not made for the movie as it was originally released in 1992. R.E.M. are apparently big Andy Kaufman fans. The band did write the song "The Great Beyond" specifically for the film.
The final scene is interesting as tackles the urban legend that Andy Kaufman faked his death and is actually still alive, while also reminding us of the influence Andy Kaufman has had on comedy and pop culture.
I was familiar with Kaufman but honestly didn't know much about him before seeing this movie. After watching Man on the Moon I wanted to know a lot more about him and do research on his life, which is something any good biopic should do for its subjects. Luckily there are plenty of videos of him on YouTube, including the infamous Fridays fight incident.
Man on the Moon was directed by Milos Forman, a two-time Oscar winner. I had only seen one of his movies before, One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest, which I love. Somehow I haven't seen Amadeus yet, so I need to watch more of his films.
An interesting piece of trivia about this film is that Forman could not decide between Jim Carrey or Ed Norton for the role of Andy Kaufman. Forman let the studio decide and they chose Carrey because they felt he was a more bankable star at the time.
Man on the Moon received mostly positive reviews from movie critics but lost money at box office. It's too bad that the film was a financial failure as its probably part of the reason Forman hasn't done much since.
8/10

Four Bad Movies

Season of the Witch (2011)
Guess what, I finally saw a bad movie from 2011!
Season of the Witch was actually worse than I expected. The movie is not over the top bad but just boring and unexciting. The plot is sort of like The Seventh Seal as an action movie since we have a returning crusader and his partner who must transport a suspected witch to a monastery. I'm not going to get into how historical the movie is as even though it tries to be accurate in some ways overall the movie is pure fantasy and not really trying to be historically accurate.
Nicolas Cage was alright but he is an actor who seems to be only as good as the material he is working with. When he has a good script and director he can be great (Adaptation). But when that doesn't happen the results can be disastrous (The Wicker Man). Now one could argue that actors generally do better when the writing and directing are good and worse when its not, but Cage seems to take this to the extreme.   
Ron Perlman was fun but his character, the partner of the knight played by Cage, simply doesn't have much to do.
While I'm not an expert on cinematic techniques, there appear some obvious day for night scenes that have a bluish tint. Other times its way too dark and hard to see what is going on. I would expect this from a low budget non-Hollywood movie but Season of the Witch had a $40 million budget! I guess all the money went to the salaries of Cage and Perlman. It certainly didn't go to the CGI which looks pretty bad for a mainstream 2011 movie. 
Season of the Witch isn't that bad, but there are a lot of movies worse than it which are a lot more fun to watch. For example, see some of the movies below!
3/10

Double Dragon (1994)
Double Dragon is stupid as hell but at the end of the day its watchable and fun. I enjoyed seeing this movie a lot more than Season of Witch even though that is a better movie.
The best way to describe Double Dragon is that it is along the lines of Surf Ninjas or the 3 Ninjas series but for a slightly older audience.
This movie is based on the video game of the same name which was a beat 'em up fighting game. Just because something is popular and good in its own medium doesn't mean it will make a good film. The concept just doesn't really work as a movie even though it was a fun game. I did like how the actual arcade game showed up in the movie. That *that* fourth wall!
Our main character is Jimmy Lee (played by Mark Dacascos, a dead ringer for Brandon Lee) who along with his brother Billy Lee must stop an evil ruler named Koga Shuko (played by Robert Patrick) from gaining the other half of a talisman that will allow him to rule the world. While I love Robert Patrick for his role as the T-1000 and in two awesome episodes the 1990s Outer Limits series, he is just plain silly here and feels like a 60s Batman villain.
Alyssa Milano is better known for her work on Television but plays the female lead here. The only other movie I had seen her in is Commando as Arnold Schwarzenegger's daughter! Oddly enough, like Robert Patrick she was also in an episode of The Outer Limits.
There are cameos for Vanna White and Andy Dick who appear as themselves. I'm not sure why, but this movie was so ridiculous it worked.
I was shocked to see that Paul Dini had a writing credit for the story. Now maybe he only he didn't have much to do with the final screenplay or was paid by the studio to simply deliver this dreck, but I couldn't believe that this was the same guy who won Emmy Awards for the writing on Batman: The Animated Series and Tiny Toon Adventures. I re-watched his shows Batman:TAS and Batman Beyond recently and they hold up very well as are surprisingly dark and adult for kids shows.
Double Dragon was a box office failure which shouldn't be a surprise. Still, if you need a fun bad movie to watch with a group of friends, this would be a fine choice.
3/10

Yongary, Monster from the Deep (1967)
Yongary is essentially the South Korean Godzilla. He looks a lot like Godzilla, with one of the main differences being the horns on his head. Yongary is considered to be a Kaiju film (Japanese for "strange beast" but often translated into English as "monster").
Although Yongary is a pretty bad movie, it is somewhat amusing. Yongary dances after all!
The kid who tries to befriend Yongary is pretty damn annoying but I expected that since I think these movies were meant for children and to sell toys.
The original Korean version of Yongary is lost and the film that exists is the dubbed American version. While my initial reaction to this news was "no big loss," I truly think it is a shame when any film is lost regardless of quality. Maybe a copy of the original version will turn up someday, although I'd like to see London After Midnight first!
Yongary was re-made by South Korea as Reptilian in 1999.
2/10

Wing Commander (1999)
I had actually seen this before but watched it again with some friends who enjoy bad cinema.
Wing Commander is probably one of the few movies based on a video game in which the game actually had better actors! John Rhys-Davies, Malcom McDowell, and Mark Hamill all provided voices in the games. That said, there are actually some talented actors I like in this movie such as Jurgen Prochnow and David Warner even though they just aren't given much to work with. Here is a weird piece of trivia concerning the cast: Prochnow and Warner were also both in the film In the Mouth of Madness while Wing Commander also features Shaggy (Matthew Lillard) and Freddy (Freddy Prinze Jr.) from the first two live action Scooby-Doo movies. There must have been a 2 for 1 sale on actors in the 90s!
Simon MacCorkindale, known for his TV work such as in the cult show Maninmal, has a small role as "Flight Boss."
Wing Commander was one of three movies that had Phantom Menace trailer attached to it and there are stories of people buying a ticket to the movie and leaving after the trailer. Today we have trailers for movie trailers on the internet. Oh how things have changed in less than 15 years!
Although this is a bad movie I'll give it credit for actually trying with its characterizations even though it ultimately fails. For example, there is a sub-plot that Prinze's character is discriminated against because he is a "pilgrim" but after awhile its just forgotten about. Wing Commander feels like Star Wars meets Starship Troopers with a World War II vibe. Although this sounds cool in theory, it doesn't work out and is a bit of a mess. There is plenty of action but its surprisingly boring. The alien bad guys (a race called the Kilrathi) are not shown until late in the movie. While this is usually a good tactic in film, the silly appearance of the Kilrathi who are basically cat people with Fu Manchu mustaches is a terrible pay-off. After all the build-up throughout the movie I just laughed when I finally saw the Kilthrai.
The director of Wing Commander was Chris Roberts, who also directed the video games. I guess the producers chose Roberts because he knew the material and to give credibility to the fans. I think this was part of the problem as directing a video game is a lot different than directing a film and Roberts hasn't directed anything since.
Like Double Dragon this is a watchable, fun bad movie. I never played the games so I can't say how close it is to the series though.
3/10

This post will have a sequel featuring four more bad movies.

Bicentennial Man (1999)

Bicentennial Man (1999)
Directed by Chris Columbus
Starring: Robin Williams, Sam Neill, Embeth Davidtz
IMDB: Bicentennial Man

Why I wanted to watch it: Bicentennial Man is science fiction movie I had not seen before. Also it is based on a story by Isaac Asimov, an author whom I enjoy.

Plot Synopsis: Over the course of two hundred years, an android endeavors to become human as he gradually acquires emotions.

Thoughts:
Bicentennial Man felt like a combination between A.I. Artificial Intelligence and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, two films I prefer over this one. My main complaint with Bicentennial Man is its maudlin tone. While the movie shifts away with from this at times, it still comes back to it. It just felt like it was trying to hard to be a tearjerker. Although I understand that this is a character study about how a robot has become "human," I feel that there could have been something more driving the plot. For example, the robot Andrew (Robin Williams) is able to learn and develop a personality without an emotion chip. However, it is never explained why this is possible, other than that "Andrew is special." I feel like this could have been explained  and would have been an interesting subplot. Twelve years after the movie has been released the special effects still look good, but I'm not sure why the movie cost $100 million to make. I guess Robin Williams demanded a large salary! Another thing that didn't make sense to me was why the son of "Little Miss" hated Andrew. She loved Andrew and he was around them since before the births of her children, so it would have been nice if there was a scene or two explaining this. Also the explanation for the granddaughter of Little Miss looking just like her was silly. In Back to the Future I could buy different generations looking exactly the same and I would have let it pass here. But it actually say that she looked like her grandmother because "It skips a generation" was an insult to genetics as no explanation was necessary.

I did like that Asmiov's Three Laws of Robotics were explained at the beginning of the film. The first 15 minutes of the movie show Andrew adapting to life with the Martin family. While this was necessary to the plot, I'm just glad that the whole movie didn't focus on this type of "fish out of water humor." This leads to the time jumps in the movie. It was fascinating to see how Andrew's world changed over the course of 200 years. I would have liked to seen more on how the human view on robots and androids changed over the years but I did enjoy seeing Andrew "evolve" and develop over the years. To be fair this is really what this movie is about, not society as a whole. Although Bicentennial Man reminded me of Data's entire character arc from Star Trek: The Next Generation, this movie was based on a story that came out years before that show and took it in different directions. For example there is no subplot about a creator who modeled the robot after himself. Also I thought it was interesting how it was tough for Andrew to fully let go of his "robot-ness" in order to become human, which was what he really wanted. Sam Neill put in a nice performance as "Sir," the father and head of the family who buys Andrew and gives him a human education. Embeth Davidtz did a good job as the daughter of Sir, "Little Miss." She played a dual role also appearing as the granddaughter of Little Miss, who Andrew eventually falls in love with. While I didn't like the female robot, Galatea, I think that was the point since she was a slave to her personality chip. Luckily she didn't get too much screen time and I thought what happened to her in the end was clever. I think the casting of Robin Williams may have thrown some people off as the film is humorous at times but not a comedy.

Trivia:
Bicentennial Man was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Makeup category. I'm not losing any sleep that it lost, but the makeup was good, especially on the elderly Robin Williams.
Adam Bryant, a stand-in for Robin Williams in everything from Jumanji to Night at the Museum, appears as the android head as it get puts on the new body.
Isaac Asimov's original novella, The Bicentennial Man, was written with the intention of being in a collection of science fiction stories in honor of the bicentennial of the United States. However, the project never came to fruition and Asimov's story was the only one written. The novella won the both the Hugo and the Nebula award. Asimov expanded the story into a novel called The Positronic Man in 1993. Although I haven't read the source material, according to Wikipedia the movie appears to be surprisingly faithful the Asimov's story.

Score: 6/10
Closing Thoughts: I liked Bicentennial Man but wish it was less schmaltzy and instead focused more on the big ideas it presented under the umbrella of what it means to be human.

Chris Columbus, the director of Bicentennial Man, also directed the first two Harry Potter films. In the next several days I'll be re-watching the Harry Potter series with my brother in preparation for the final film (or second part of the final film!). Since I have seen them before and so much has been written on them I'll just do one special post (in two parts) on all the Harry Potter films.