Wild Wild West film review

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WILD WILD WEST

In a noisy collision of saloon-bar horsing around, buddy movie friction and Jules Verne fantasy, the second of an ongoing collaboration between Will Smith and his Men In Black director Barry Sonnenfeld arrives with a swirling tailwind.

Based on a lesser-known 60s telly show, Smith re-invents the lead character of Captain James T West as a cool, maverick gun-slinger - a man of unorthodox action, but dedicated to his job.

On the insistence of President Ulysses Grant (Kevin Kline), he is reluctantly paired with intellectual inventor Artemus Gordon (Kline, again) to find vicious Southern General Bloodbath McGrath (Ted Levine). The hunt leads swiftly to villainous mastermind Dr Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh), hewn in half during a Civil War skirmish and now seething with sufficient rage and hatred to plot the overthrow of the fledgling United States.

But plot, shmlot. This is all about having fun.

It's about splicing genres and having huge, mechanical contraptions stomp through Western towns. It's about Salma Hayek offering voluptuous glamour as an escaped Loveless showgirl. It's about runaway horses, runaway trains and grand style stunt sequences. And it's about the indefatigable Will Smith phenomenon: the combo of summer adventure movie and themed hit single accompaniment that's becoming something of a tradition.

This tradition is probably responsible for the undeserved critical hammering received in the States.

Yes, there are flaws, and agreed, it perhaps lacks some of the wit and quirkiness of Men In Black, but the saving grace for MIB was that it ducked under the journalistic radar.

How telling that while The Lost World and Batman & Robin were copping the flak in 1997 (as WWW is now), the surprise sci-fi comedy enjoyed the benefit of positive comparison.

This time, everyone has seen it coming and for some reason much of the press seemed to expect something other than an excessive, expensive summer blockbuster. But that's precisely what it is: flashy, extreme, transient entertainment, gaudy, popcorn, multiplex fodder in keeping with the holiday spirit. And frankly, there's nothing wrong with that.

And although some of the jokes are squashed by blaring effects and more time might have been allowed for Smith and Kline to stretch their comedy legs, there's a lot to enjoy here.