ViewGuide

Created Jan 10, 2009 03:19AM PST • Edited Jan 10, 2009 03:19AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Awful 0.0

   On watching this film a long, LONG time after having first seen it, I realise just how terrible it is – in every sense, this film is a joke. Will Smith, normally the one saving grace in any terrible film (just look at Hancock) can’t even rescue this one.

4. Acting

   Awful 0.0

   Smith and Kline have to spearhead the film, and they try their best – it’s just not good enough. Add to this Salma Hayek as the most ridiculously naive damsel in distress, and Kenneth Branagh and Ted Levine as the bigoted, vaudevillian antagonists, and what’s apparent is that each of this actors, excellent or revered individually for other performances, were IN THIS FOR THE MONEY.

5. Male Stars Awful 0.0

   Smith, Kline and Branagh are the clear male stars, and each of them are terrible in their own special ways. Smith plays up his ‘Big Willy’ persona and takes it back to the frontier days, with the cocky, smart-ass attitude not really working. Kline plays both Artimus Gordon and President Grant, and neither role is really that good for the actor, who seems uncomfortable in a big budget film. Branagh is probably the worst movie villain of all time – his racist, paraplegic character Loveless is a total joke, and it’s so ridiculous to think that the man beneath the performance has been the foremost adaptor of Shakespeare. Unbelievable yet true, Branagh just makes you cringe every second he’s onscreen. Why he, Smith or Kline ever thought this would be a good decision is totally beyond me.

6. Female Stars Awful 0.0

   Salma Hayek plays a woman rescued by the duo who has her own motivations, and the actress is really only in the movie as a feisty piece of eye candy for the two to fight over. Whilst her story’s conclusion is a nice little change from the usual, it does nothing to make her performance any better, or any less ridiculous.

7. Female Costars Awful 0.0

   The other women represented are the henchwomen to Loveless – a bunch of women chosen for their looks, and not acting ability. Need I say more?

8. Male Costars Awful 0.0

   Ted Levine was the serial killer Jame Gumb in Silence of the Lambs seven years previous to this film – a performance that he was acclaimed for, and for which many people will fondly remember him. Why in the hell he would want to lower himself to playing such a ridiculous caricature as he does here? His army general is the lowest of the low, a dim-witted idiot who serves as the secondary villain to Branagh, and…it’s just stupid. A talented actor playing a one-dimensional character is always a shame.

10. Film

    Awful 0.0

    The film, for what it’s worth, has some good special effects, but the terrible dialogue, characters and plot take what little positivity can be found.

11. Direction Awful 0.0

    Barry Sonnenfeld made Men In Black with Will Smith – and then this. Why he would is anyone’s guess, because this film bastardises the television show it’s adapted from, and is in every directorial sense (other than the effects) a joke.

12. Play Awful 0.0

    This is truly bad. From Branagh’s racist epithets toward Smith, onto Smith’s woefully bad innuendoes, and Kline’s boffin talk, the script is a bad, bad joke.

13. Music Awful 0.0

    The music is alright – it takes the theme from the show, and presents a Western, action-style soundtrack that is indicative of Elmer Bernstein. It’s a shame such an esteemed composer has his music set along to such a terrible movie.

14. Visuals Awful 0.0

    The only, ONLY area of the movie that has any merit – the CGI is actually good throughout, referencing steam-punk and maintaining the film’s burnished, outdoors look. The stunts are also quite excellently done, and once again, it just makes me sad to think that all these people worked so hard for a film that forsakes everything good done for it.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Sordid 2.8

    There’s a little of each, and the racist insults used towards Smith’s West are probably the most extreme example of any racy content.

17. Sex Titillating 2.0

18. Violence Fierce 2.5

19. Rudeness Nasty 4.0

21. Reality

    Surreal 2.6

    Everything’s perfectly realistic, until you consider racist the US was, and then Smith’s character’s position as a US marshal seems a little anachronistic. All that Branagh’s character creates (steam-driven devices) are based in reality, but when it comes to the massive steam-powered spider, and his wheelchair of tricks, it’s a little hard to believe.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 2.6

23. Biological Surreal 2.6

24. Physical Surreal 2.6