Wild Wild West

In The Addams Family and Men in Black, Barry Sonnenfeld suggested he could be a promising surrealist if he indulged his imagination and sense of humor more and his special-effects budget less. Even a dull clunker like his new Wild Wild West has its moments of Magritte-like visual punch -- a bisected man in a Toulouse Lautrec get-up attached to a tiny steam engine, and, of course, the film's signature image, an 80-foot-tall mechanical tarantula. The man is Dr. Arliss Loveless (Kenneth Branagh, giving the consummate half-assed performance), a Confederate veteran who was grievously wounded during the Civil War, and the tarantula is one of his many inventions designed to overthrow of the federal government of President Grant (Kevin Kline, in the better of his dual roles). Opposing them are those artifacts from the '60s TV show of the title, secret agents Jim West (Will Smith, looking like a guy in a cowboy suit) and Artemus Gordon (Kline again, prissy and unfunny). West does occasionally address race, including one flat take-off from Blazing Saddles, but given the colorless characterizations overall, that issue becomes moot. With its pretty señorita (Salma Hayek, showing her butt) and its Victorian science-fiction decor, West seems at times like Zorro by way of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but it has neither the charm of the former nor the vigor of the latter, and none the insouciance or wit of the original show. This West is tame indeed. At the Harbour Mall, Showcase, Starcase, Tri-Boro, and Woonsocket cinemas.
-- Peter Keough