Wild Wild West (DiVX Movie Review)

The western genre had its climax long ago (1940s and 1950s). Only very few modern western movies come close to what was delivered, the day John Wayne was young. To be honest, right now, I can't remember worthy "recent" titles, others than Clint Eastwood's "Unforgiven" and Kevin Costner's "Dances with Wolves"...

This introduction happens, as I can't label "Wild Wild West" (WWW), a movie starring Will Smith, still riding on his "Independence Day" fame. WWW is quite a strange movie... It all happens in the days horses and canyons ruled, but it somehow feels very odd, because of a too regular presence of "modern" gadgets, such as powerful weapons and the most incredible (read "not credible") and inadequate mechanical spider!

Yes, WWW should have been named MMW (Modern Modern West) - not only technology looks too advanced for the time, but there also is a social relax that cuts deep away from the cleavages that characterized the Western genre. Westerns are (were) all about the good guys and the bad guys, and the distinction of whose good and whose bad, is (was) made on high values - not on high jokes and on someone's popularity among the opposite sex.

In 1995, when WWW was just an idea, Tom Cruise was reported as the one to star as James West (the leading role); then it was Mel Gibson, with Will Smith as Artemus Gordon (the 2nd good guy - the scientist); and all ended up like you know it: Will Smith as James West and Kevin Klein as Artemus Gordon.

The bad guy is Kenneth Branagh, on the role of Dr. Arliss Loveless. Kenneth, probably better known for directing movies like the latest "modern times" Frankenstein, has a very wide experience on the cinema biz and does the best anyone could do for the Loveless character. Loveless isn't exactly a superb villain - he has severely physical problems that reduce the acting to... talking.

The best thing on the WWW story is the initial half hour, when everything is new and you were made to believe that the bad guy is someone else, other than Lovelace. Then the film becomes obvious and very recurring.. I can't explain why, but I kept remembering about movies like "The Golden Child" (Eddie Murphy against Satan)...

So this is all about the clash of the US Government against Lovelace; of course the USG will win, thanks to West and Gordon. Entertaining. Nothing special. And recurring.

My DiVX encoding of the DVD edition runs with no problems, from a single CD. The usual heavy-on-the-pixels effect happens on high speed motion scenes. Sound is better when the .avi is played from Microsoft's Media Player - the specialized GDiVX player brings no advantage to the file.

Ah, for Selma Hayek fans, a warning, as she stars on the role of Rita Escobar, showing just a bit of her nice ass.