While I will get into more in my mind objective reasons for why I think it's a bad movie in it's own right it's hard not to just rail on it for being (IMO at least) a disgrace to the television series which even at its craziest in its later seasons wasn't...well...this. Jim West and Loveless in particular getting the worst of it. Making the former a rather unlikable protagonist (more on that later, as I consider it a more genuine issue beyond adaptation) and the latter has none of the charisma or panache of the character played by Michael Dunn who also still managed to retain the feeling of being a genuine threat. And is instead replaced by something that is just crude, obnoxious, and comes off as too much of a joke to be threatening. Kenneth Branagh has proven that he is a great actor who could play those traits I mentioned before, and I guess that they could have sold me on his casting and making him a paraplegic rather than a "little person" in order to facilitate it (though I still would have preferred the latter) if played and written well enough and they just don't accomplish it IMO. Changing things is inevitable in any adaptation, but when you change around something that worked fine with something inferior or less interesting I am forced to wonder why it was done anyway if it's not a worthwhile trade-off.
I think it's biggest problem as a piece on its own terms is the same as that of Batman & Robin. In that it is largely a farcical camp-fest in terms of tone (which on its own is not a bad thing in of itself), but in certain places try injecting serious/deep material and it just does not gel. In that film's case it was the Alfred/Nora sub-plots, where they are dying and we see Bruce and Victor dealing with that in places. Alfred brining up really interesting philosophical/thematic ideas. Coping with/accepting death. Questioning whether or not Bruce is trying to master death itself, etc. But the ideas are not fully explored and the rest of the film is played so ridiculously that at the end none of it matters. The same kind of problem comes into play when they start trying to genuinely deal with the race thing. Particularly when they long into the film bring in the massacred "New Liberty" sub-plot where West's parents were killed and what not all of which is played dead serious, with that than being played out through the rest of the film paired up with pieces like the drag scene that feels like something out of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. With the whole racism idea otherwise feeling done in a half-hearted fashion at best which gives the film an overtly awkward feel in those scenes. IMO you either commit to it, or you don't. If either film wanted to be nothing but a wildly over the top piece of camp than fine, but don't inject that kind of heavy material which throws it off balance and makes the films seem both muddled and confused. That's not to say you cannot balance some a good dose of comedic material and serious storytelling (I like Batman Forever more than most. And while not a great movie I think it does an overall decent, though not perfect, job of doing that) Another example that more people would probably agree do a good job at this include Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl among others.
And this is where we get into what I was talking about earlier with the protagonist. While Will Smith clearly puts in more effort than someone like say Clooney as Batman, that character just comes off as bland and lazy more than anything else. Smith's Jim West IMO is not that likable in spite of Will Smith's innate likability. He plays it cool as usual, but the character acts too much like a jerk whilst the film seems unaware of just how far it goes. (And given that the film was intended to be just a fun summer blockbuster for the popcorn munching audience, I doubt they intended for him to be one) The Nostalgia Chick IMO summed it up best when she called his character, "Jim West is arrogant, careless, narcissistic, misogynistic, bigoted and impulsive. He nigh constantly shows disrespect for all human life, and throughout the course of the film neither learns the benefit of changing his ways nor does he feel any need or incentive to rectify his behavior. He is a jerk with no character arc. In short he is the Anti-Agent J." There is just too much of a sense of mean-spiritedness with his character that he is hard to root for. There is no real camaraderie between he and Artemis Gordon. I don't mind the idea that the two start out as rivals, but even at the very end West seems to still resent him. The Get Smart film did something similar Max and 99, but they went all the way with it and had the two get a better understanding of each other by the end. It seems like the way this film is heading at first with all the lines about how "We need to put aside our differences" but it feels only like lip-service as they don't really do anything with it.
And the only other major supporting ally character he gets some screen time is Selma Hayek's love interest who does not really add much to the plot in the long-run, writing her out would not take much effort at all really, he only ever treats her like a disposable object. Granted some early Bond films veered dangerously close to this, particularly in Connery's, but even then (beyond the fact that those were made in the early/mid 1960's rather than the late 1990's) he does show he can be more than that given what feels like his genuine friendship and rapport with Moneypenny or certain times where he does seem legitimately effected by what happens to them to some degree as is the case with the Masterson's in Goldfinger. Jim West in this film does not even have any of that. Perhaps an interesting character could have come with all of this if they had spent more time developing these factors (as well as being more aware of the kind of character they were writing) but IMO they do not do so.
Though I need to stress that I am not trying to insult anyone who likes this film by saying it, and am only trying to get across my own perspective on the film. It's not like nothing works. Some of the jokes can be genuinely funny, a lot of the production values are nice, and Kevin Kline does a great job in his dual roles as Gordon and Grant for instance. I think he could have worked quite well in the role of Artemis even in a more straight adaptation of the series. But on the whole the film just does not congeal right to me. If it wanted to be a complete farce of a western that treated its story and the racial content in a more consistent manner, than it should have been more like Blazing Saddles. If it wanted to be a more serious western with a fun lighthearted tone and a good dose of humor without going into farcical territory, than in should have been like (Kevin Kline's own ironically enough) Silverado. Those films know what they are and either go all the way with something or find a proper balance. Something like this IMO does not manage to do so.
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