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That’s right kids, it’s time for wicky wicky Wild Wild West, starring Will Smith as Jim West: desperado, rough rider, no you don’t want nada…
Great, now I’ve got that song stuck in my head. Who the hell can get away with rhyming ‘rough rider’ with ‘you don’t want nada?’ Will Smith, that’s who. It might be hard to imagine now, but he could do no wrong back then.
After his Men in Black rap was a massive hit the year before, some Hollywood genius let him write the theme tune and sing the theme tune for Wild Wild West. The only issue was it sucked. Those lyrics should have been a capital crime, punishable by death, but of course it was a smash hit.
It’s easy to say with hindsight, but Will Smith was racking up one heck of a karma bill.
Time to collect
Wild Wild West itself was a modest box office success, despite the whole world agreeing that it too sucked. It sparked conspiracy theories about young people buying tickets to this film and then slipping out to watch the R-rated South Park instead.
The reviews were so bad it took me twenty-five years to watch it. I originally included it on my ISM* list of spider movies. I knew a giant mechanical spider featured, but I figured it was an incidental part of the story. However, having finally watched it, I realise I was wrong. Spiders and spider iconography are woven throughout the movie, so here we are.
*ISM: incidental spider movies. Movies that feature giant spiders but aren’t about giant spiders are not included in my series.
I have two other ulterior motives for wanting to write about this movie. One, it gives me an opportunity to dip my toe into a western, a genre not seen so far in giant spiderdom. Two, it gives me an excuse to retell the Kevin Smith giant spider story, and no history of giant spider movies would be complete without it.
Everybody Hates Wild Wild West
Where was I? Oh yes, the movie sucks, apparently. Ask anyone involved and they’ll tell you. Will Smith hates it. As recently as 2021 he said it’s his worst film. I’m not surprised it still haunts him – he turned down The Matrix to do it. THE FUCKING MATRIX!
Will Smith’s momma didn’t like it either, and that’s got to sting almost as much as missing out on The Matrix because with everything we do, even as grown adults, we just want our parents to be proud of our work (says the guy writing about giant spiders who hasn’t told his parents yet because seriously, how do you bring that into the conversation?).
Salma Hayek thinks she was underused in Wild Wild West, which I’ll discuss later. Kenneth Branagh admits to doing it for the money and owns up to having the worst southern US accent in history. I thought it was fine, but then I’m British too, so what do I know? Kevin Kline laughs in the general direction of the executives who asked the director to remove the movie’s nuances and make it less complex.
Will Smith looks like he just wants to get out of there, Kevin Kline look disillusioned and Salma Hayek looks pissed off
Robert Conrad, star of the original Wild Wild West television series, refused to take a role in the movie because he knew, just by reading the script, that it sucked. Not only that, but when the movie won five Razzies (the Golden Raspberry awards, or the Upside-Down version of the Oscars) he showed up to accept the awards in person to dunk on the fools who made it.
It beat Star Wars Episode 1: the Phantom Menace to worst picture. It’s THAT bad. It also won worst song (fair), worst director (harsh), worst screen couple for Will Smith and Kevin Kline (harsh – I thought they were quite good together) and worst screenplay (fair).
Steampunk Willy
Not to be a contrarian, but I quite like it, up to a point. Perhaps it’s the distance. Perhaps it’s the low expectations. Perhaps it’s the alcohol. But I agree with the director, Barry Sonnenfeld, who said in an interview that the movie is a decent steampunk Western right up until Will Smith auditions for Ru Paul’s Drag Race (I’ll explain later). Then it falls apart.
What I like most about wicky wicky Wild Wild West is the steampunk design. In case you don’t know, steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that features technology inspired by 19th century aesthetics. Usually it is used in a futuristic setting, creating a retro feel, but here the technology fits the era in which the movie is set, so it feels contemporary yet futuristic at the same time.
Examples used in the movie include a prototype internal combustion engine strapped to a Penny Farthing (which is a long-winded way of saying ‘motorbike’), the Inspector Gadget of steam trains and a steam-and-hydraulic powered wheelchair. These machines blend in seamlessly with traditional 1860s technology like wagons, six-shooters, wholesale prostitution, horses and saloons.
Bar dance controversy
Set in 1869, a few years after the end of the US civil war, Jim West is a US army captain (not a desperado – fuck off, Will) on the trail of a rogue confederate general named Bloodbath McGrath. That name rhymes no matter what accent you use.
McGrath sports an implanted metal ear trumpet, another retro-tech example, and is hanging out in a bar. There’s going to be a bar fight, but you knew that already.
The movie commits its worst sin almost immediately. I don’t know how to break this to you, but during the opening sequence Salma Hayek performs a bar dance…and it lasts for about five seconds.
Let’s take a moment to let that sink in. They hired Salma Hayek, and the script required her to perform a bar dance, and they chose not to devote four minutes of screentime to it like From Dusk ‘Til Dawn. If you haven’t watched that scene in From Dusk ‘Til Dawn before, please do so. If you have, watch it again, you know you want to.
You know you want to
I understand that this is a family film, but it’s not really. Not by today’s standards. For the rest of the movie, Salma’s boobs are practically bursting out her corset and we literally see her ass (the crack anyway, plus a cheeky bit of cheek). The movie is PG-13, to use American parlance, but it’s not like they toned it down too much for the kids. And we haven’t even got to the bondage den and steampunk dildos yet.
No, really.
Tarantula cake
I won’t dwell too much on the plot because I want to get to the spiders. To sum it up, West fails to capture Bloodbath McGrath during the obligatory bar fight. He ends up tangling with US Marshall Artemis Gordon (Kevin Kline), who is pursuing the same guy while disguised as a prostitute. We’ve all been there.
President Grant orders the reluctant duo to team up and track down Bloodbath together. This might be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but only if they don’t kill each other first, am I right? You know how these mismatched buddy movies go.
Little do they know that Bloodbath McGrath is merely a henchman to the real villain, Dr Loveless (Kenneth Branagh). His name is a clue that he’s bad. Loveless has kidnapped multiple scientists to create a super weapon (a giant metal spider – spoiler) and is going to use it to overthrow the US republic in seven days’ time.
Loveless sends the president a letter telling him all this, plus a cake shaped like the White House with real tarantulas crawling over it.
Not to question his genius, but wouldn’t surprise be a better strategy? Now that the President is alert to the plot, he’s put his two best men on the case. They even know how long they’ve got to complete the job, which is an unexpected luxury.
Spider fetish
Kenneth Branagh seems to be having a ball in the role of Loveless. Loveless was played by a dwarf actor in the original TV show. Here they just cut a full-size person in half.
Loveless only exists from the waist up due to a war injury, poor guy, so you can see why he’s over-compensating with his massive erections…sorry, constructions.
Loveless also has a spider fetish. As well as the giant metal spider and the tarantula cake, he has his own spider flag, which is a confederate flag with a spider in the middle. He fought for the South during the civil war, lost, rebranded, and wants a rematch.
He’s so annoyed with Bloodbath for surrendering during the war that he kills him and all his men with a steam-powered tank. I was disappointed because the tank isn’t spider themed. It should have had eight cannons or something.
I had a few other issues with Loveless’ branding. His wheelchair develops hydraulic legs later in the movie, but there are only four of them. I’m sure it’s meant to represent a spider, but the number doesn’t check out. Would it have killed them to animate four more?
Same problem with his train, which has four huge legs that raise it from the track, so his pursuers pass right underneath. I suppose you could add up the legs on those two machines to make eight.
On the plus side, Loveless has three hot henchwomen and one of them wears a dress with a spider web pattern. His secret lair is called Spider Canyon, which has many glass buildings with web patterns on the windows, so that’s bang on trend.
50 Shades of Loveless
This next point isn’t spider-related, but I need to address it. It concerns Salma Hayek’s character, Rita. She shows up at Loveless’ plantation, having been hired as a dancer.
Loveless’ henchwomen immediately imprison her in a massive birdcage in his bedroom. It seems she is going to be a sex slave instead, which I doubt was in the job description.
The bedroom is adorned with all manner of bondage equipment including restraints, chains and what looks like a sex swing (I don’t know for sure, I’m too innocent for that kind of thing). This is still meant to be a family film.
The movie even addresses how Loveless can perform sexually without his…lower half. He boasts to West and Gordon that his skills with mechanics means he can create something to do the job. We then cut to a phallic-shaped machine on springs that fires projectiles out the end.
Dick Pic
I mean…they could have just not gone there. Did they realise that was an option?
It transpires that Rita’s father is one of the kidnapped scientists and she is looking for him. Long story short: Gordon rescues Rita and stops West from getting lynched at Loveless’ plantation. They discover the bodies of Bloodbath and his men, pursue Loveless in their train, get into a fight and lose.
During the fight, Rita sets off one of Artemis’ inventions: a pool ball filled with sleeping gas, which knocks them all out. I thought she was working for Loveless at this point, which would have been a nice twist, but no, she’s just stupid.
Giant Spider Time
Loveless kidnaps Rita while West and Gordon wake up with magnetic dog collars around their necks (testicles still intact, thankfully). The collars attract circular blades fired from the dildo machine.
It’s a true Dr Evil moment: placing the heroes in an elaborate trap and then leaving. Surely the point of setting such a trap is to have fun watching it play out. Why go to all that effort? Just shoot the fuckers.
West and Gordon escape the trap (no, really?). Once free, they settle down for a night around the campfire and some spider related foreshadowing.
West finds a tarantula on his arm and puts it down gently, only for it to be attacked by a hawk wasp. I’ve spoken about this before, but the hawk wasp is the tarantula’s natural predator (as well as possessing the second most painful sting in the world, fact fans).
The specifics of what a hawk wasp does to a tarantula are gruesome and not relevant here. What is relevant is the idea of the spider being vulnerable to an airborne attack.
The next day, West and Gordon catch up with their train (which Loveless stole) at Spider Canyon, just in time to see Loveless take his 80-feet tarantula out for a joyride.
It’s an impressive special effect that holds up today. I counted eight legs (obviously – we wouldn’t be here otherwise). But with so many moving parts, I imagine that an awful lot could go wrong with it. Thank God for plot armour.
Gordon remembers the tale of the hawk wasp and thinks he can invent a flying machine to attack the spider. But West has no time for such fantasies. The spider is heading to a ceremony where President Grant is marking the joining of the first transcontinental railroad.
The Golden Spike Ceremony
This scene based on a true 1869 event called the ‘golden spike ceremony.’ In real life, President Grant wasn’t the one to drive the last spike into the ground, nor was the ceremony interrupted by a giant spider. My point is that it’s not a true story, but is based on real events, which is a nice touch.
Loveless kidnaps the president and Gordon, who shows up at the ceremony dressed as the president to provide a decoy. They look alike because Gordon is a master of disguise and also they’re both played by Kevin Kline, which is cheating.
Big Willie Style
While Loveless is distracted by the two presidents, West climbs up one of the spider legs and launches a surprise attack. A henchwoman immediately sees him. He starts to wisecrack his way out of it, Big Willie Style, but she has absolutely zero tolerance for his Will Smith bullshit and shoots him in the chest.
West plummets 80 feet to the ground. It’s the best moment of the movie. I was genuinely surprised. It takes a brave soul to kill off peak Will Smith before the end of the second act. If I were a cowboy, I’d be tipping my hat to the screenwriters right now.
He’s not really dead. You probably suspected. He’s wearing a chainmail vest that stops the bullet. Gordon gives it a fancy name but it’s a chainmail vest. It’s not steampunk, it’s medieval, but we’ll let it slide.
There’s no explanation for how he survived the fall. Earlier in the movie, Gordon showcases a bungee rope invention. Could they have not used it here?
They were never going to kill Will Smith, but it would have been cool though, right? Nothing against him, but if they’d done it, I guarantee nobody would be saying Wild Wild West sucked all these years later. It would be considered a bold, underrated gem due for a re-evaluation.
We would also have been spared the scene that comes next. Brace yourselves…this is where the wheels fall off.
The Drag Act
Loveless returns to Spider Canyon and stages a weird rally with representatives from Britain, France, Spain, Mexico and Native Americans. He unveils a new map of the USA that divides up the states between those powers, plus himself.
Britain would get its 13 colonies back, so I’m rooting for him now. I didn’t spot any land for the natives, though. Figures.
The representatives of these great powers mostly just sit in the crowd and nod occasionally. That’s their entire contribution. Where’s their armies? What are they bringing to the party to justify Loveless handing over huge swathes of US territory to them?
President Grant refuses to surrender because he’s stoic like that. Loveless gets distracted when Middle Eastern belly dancing music strikes up (it’s not clear who is playing it).
They turn to see West climb on stage unopposed, dressed as a belly dancer with huge fake breasts (another of Gordon’s cunning disguises).
West then performs a seductive dance for Loveless, who suddenly forgets about world domination and wheelies around onstage like he’s just turned 18 and it’s his first visit to a strip club.
It’s not only the worst scene of the movie, it’s a contender for the worst scene of any movie, ever. A henchwoman is pointing her rifle at West the whole time and I was begging her to pull the trigger.
The scene ends the only way it can, really: West shoots flamethrowers out of his nipples and barbecues the bad guys. Fuck it, they may as well go all-in at this point.
The invention of flying
Loveless escapes in the spider with his henchwomen and the president. Rita finds her father, wishes West and Gordon well and plays no part in the third act. I agree with Salma Hayek – she was underused.
But what baffles me the most is why Loveless flees. He’s in his own city surrounded by hundreds of his own soldiers and supporters, and he’s running from literally one guy in a dress.
West didn’t bring the cavalry with him – he’s on his own. Other than the boob flamethrowers, he has one exploding 8-ball and zero guns. He sets off the bomb and everyone flees the arena. West and Gordon run down the stairs with at least ten confederate soldiers and they all ignore them.
Just. Shoot. The. Fuckers.
West and Gordon discuss how they can intercept the spider, and they circle back to the hawk wasp idea. Seconds later, we cut to the completed machine.
Gordon has mounted wings to his motorised penny farthing and invented aeroplanes 34 years before the Wright Brothers. That’s some speedy work. It’s as if the filmmakers had given up on this turd and were rushing to the end as quickly as possible.
Final showdown
Loveless is still trying to get the president to surrender, but he refuses, so the spider destroys a town. It’s a fun scene but it changes nothing.
West and Gordon land on the spider and get captured. Instead of shooting them, Loveless asks them to join him. When they refuse, he STILL doesn’t shoot them. He activates a trapdoor that sends West plummeting into the engine room, where he fights some bionic dudes with metal skeletons and knives for hands (so…Wolverine, basically).
At least Loveless stays to watch the show this time, looking down on the fight like Wheelie the Hutt. When West defeats the androids, Loveless fights West himself. This is where the four legs sprout from his wheelchair.
I don’t wish to sound like a broken record, but they could have just shot him.
Side note: the bionic dudes fight scene was only added during reshoots. Test audiences thought the final showdown was weird because West and Gordon fight only women and a disabled man. LOL.
Long story short: Loveless and his henchwomen lose, the president is saved, and so is the United States republic. Yay for America. I was rooting for you guys, honestly.
At the end, Rita reveals that her father is actually her husband, and therefore the luckiest man in the world, despite whatever else happened to him. It’s hilarious how West and Gordon both frown and say ‘you could have told us that from the start,’ which comes across like they were calling out the screenwriters.
Anyway, the movie ends with a glorious shot of West and Gordon riding the giant spider into the sunset. It’s a proper western ending, except the story isn’t quite finished…
The tale of the Thanagarian snare beast
If you get a chance, go to YouTube and watch Kevin Smith’s 20-minute answer to a question about his involvement in the movie Superman Lives, starring Nicolas Cage as Superman. He tells the story better than I ever could.
If you’re wondering what Superman has to do with Wild Wild West…well, better to hear it from him. But if you want a summary, read on…
If you haven’t heard of Superman Lives starring Nicolas Cage, it’s because the movie was never made. Before the project was aborted, Kevin Smith was asked to write a script. The movie’s eccentric producer, Jon Peters, had some odd conditions:
No flying.
No Superman suit.
Superman had to fight a giant spider in the third act.
It’s the third one that’s relevant here. There was no reason to have Superman fight a giant spider, other than Jon Peters having a weird fixation on giant spiders (what a loser).
Kevin Smith duly obliged and wrote the script but was later removed from the project when Tim Burton came onboard. The script was binned and sanity restored. Kind of.
The next movie that Jon Peters produced was…Wild Wild West. I guess it didn’t take him long to scratch that giant spider itch.
The Superman Lives story has become legend in movie geek circles. It is referenced in the 2007 Superman: Doomsday animated movie, where Superman kills a giant spider and an animated Kevin Smith calls it lame.
In the 2023 movie The Flash, a scene near the end features cameos of various incarnations of Superman from the D.C multiverse, including George Reeves (from the 1950s TV show), Christopher Reeve, and…Nicolas Cage.
In case we didn’t get the reference, we see him fighting and killing a giant spider (or Thanagarian snare beast, if you want to get technical).
Somewhere in the multiverse, that movie exists and is being reviewed by a successful version of me. In this world we get me and wicky wicky Wild Wild West instead.
I’m not sure who’s got it worse, but it’s us.
Rating: 4 spider legs out of 8
The post Giant Spider movie review: WILD WILD WEST (1999) appeared first on Last Movie Outpost.
