Page 76 - Will Smith: A Biography of a Rapper Turned Movie Star

Will Smith
76
Like Independence Day and Men in Black, Smith’s next
feature, Wild, Wild West was released on a Fourth of July
weekend. Because so many of his movies opened on that
holiday, Smith had morphed from the prince into a king:
the king of the Fourth of July.
Wild, Wild West was based on a television program
that had aired from 1965 to 1969—a western with a James
Bond touch. The title refers not only to the Old West but
to the main character, James T. West, played by Smith. He
and his partner, Artemus Gordon, played by Kevin Kline,
fight evil with unusual gadgets rather than ordinary six-
shooters. Like James Bond, James T. West is handsome
and charming. His sidekick, Gordon, is a master of
disguises and trickery.
It is said that all hot streaks come to an end. The critics
were almost unanimous in their reviews of Wild, WildWest.
Nearly all hated it. Some said the plot was weak. Others
said the movie relied so much on gadgets that it was
distracting. Still others complained that the characters
were not well developed. Another criticism of this film was
that there were too many jokes about West being African-
American, and that most of them were not funny. In the
newspaper USA Today, movie reviewer Susan Wloszczyna
summed up the general feeling when she called Wild, Wild
West “a wild, wild mess.”13
Few critics found fault with either Smith’s or Kline’s
performance, saying that the actors were not given good
material to work with. For Smith, the one bright spot