Wild Wild West (The One With the Giant Mechanical Spider)

This week on The Worst Movie Podcast, Ade and Aaron saddle up for Wild Wild West — the $170-million steampunk western that tried to mash together TV nostalgia, Will Smith swagger, and a giant mechanical spider.

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld at the peak of Will Smith’s 90s superstardom, the film reimagines the classic TV series as a gadget-stuffed action comedy where Jim West and Artemis Gordon race to stop a disgruntled Confederate villain from literally selling off the United States. Along the way, the movie delivers baffling tonal shifts, deeply uncomfortable jokes, Salma Hayek doing absolutely nothing of consequence, and one of the most infamous third acts in blockbuster history.

So grab your whiskey, dust off your boots, and saddle up for a deep dive into one of the most expensive misfires of the 1990s — because if Wild Wild West taught us anything, it’s that not even Will Smith’s charm could save a terrible script.

Transcript

Ade (00:00)
Hello and welcome to the worst movie podcast. I'm Ade.

Aaron (00:03)
And I'm Aaron and this is a podcast where we watch the worst movies ever made in the hopes of finding a hidden gem.

Ade (00:10)
Enjoy.

Happy New Year.

Aaron (00:29)
Happy New Year.

Ade (00:30)
What have you been watching over the break?

Aaron (00:33)
I have watched a ton of the Ken Burns Well, just Ken Burns in general. I watched the Revolutionary War Documentary on prime I Thought it was really good and then I'm rewatching now the Civil War Documentary that he did I've seen it I think twice before and I'm rewatching it again because it's just so good. I'm a sucker for Ken Burns

Ade (01:00)
seen it.

Aaron (01:02)
⁓ really? Any Ken Burns or?

Ade (01:04)
Yeah.

I feel like I've seen Ken Burns documentary. I know who he is.

Aaron (01:10)
⁓ no.

my God.

Ade (01:15)
⁓

I wouldn't put money that I've actually seen a full Ken Burns documentary.

Aaron (01:21)
Man, they're all great. His Vietnam one is great. He has a baseball one. That's great. They're all, they're all really good. Very thorough. What about you?

Ade (01:32)
I've seen a bunch of different things.

I'll give you a quick quiz. You know how Spotify does the end of year wrapped things. Now it seems like every app and their mother is doing this. And I got mine from letterbox. Guess who my number one viewed actor was of 2025.

Aaron (01:40)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Adam Sandler.

Ade (01:53)
No, it was actually like a five way tie, but the picture they put up was Steve's on.

Aaron (01:55)
You

⁓

Ade (02:04)
Have we talked about Steve's on, on this podcast or if I talked, I feel like he is severely underrated as a comedic actor. ⁓ but I just watched in a condo with the family over the break and, ⁓ he was funny. The movie wasn't that great, but.

Aaron (02:06)
I don't think so.

Yeah, I think so.

Hmm.

Ade (02:25)
He also tied for me with Dakota Johnson and Josh Brolin, Pedro Pascal. had a bunch that I saw. I think four movies. Yeah. For each of those.

Aaron (02:29)
No.

⁓

I really only have issues with one of those.

Ade (02:42)
Yeah, I figured. I don't mean to keep bringing her up, but let's see if we can go all of 2026 without a Dakota Johnson movie. Yes. This is a bit of a tangent, but do know they're making a Masters of the Universe movie?

Aaron (02:47)
You love her.

No, you love her.

Like a live action movie?

Ade (03:05)
I don't know, but I saw last night a trailer and it was called a title review trailer. Like it's just a trailer for the title sequence. Like it has no footage from the movie. I'm like, what kind of bullshit is this that it's like a trailer for the credits?

Aaron (03:14)
What does that mean?

⁓

Ade (03:27)
we're going to not just do a trailer. We're not going to do a teaser trailer. We're going to do a teaser trailer for the title sequence and tell you nothing about the movie.

Aaron (03:37)
they're really going to extremes to ⁓ get test audiences in front of these things, I guess.

Ade (03:44)
guess so

Aaron (03:45)
Your boy Jared Leto's in it. He's Skeletor.

Ade (03:47)
my gosh. ⁓

He's already skeletal in real life.

Aaron (03:57)
⁓ I did not know that.

Ade (04:01)
Should we talk about today's movie?

Aaron (04:04)
Yeah.

Ade (04:05)
New month, new theme. And this month's theme is TV adaptations. So we're to talk about Wild Wild West from 1999, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. He directed the Addams family, Get Shorty, Men in Black, and this movie, starring Will Smith and Kevin Klein.

16 % Rotten Tomatoes, $170 million budget and $220 million in the box office. So not a complete flop, but pretty big disappointment once you consider all the marketing costs and all that. I assume you've heard of this movie. Have you seen this movie before?

Aaron (04:43)
Yeah, I saw it a few times when I was a kid. I was really into the, like, I think it was Burger King. You could get the sunglasses that Will Smith wears in the movie, like with your kid's meal. So I was always trying to get the Will Smith glasses from.

Ade (04:46)
really.

Y-yeah.

But so was there a tie in where you had to watch the movie several times? You like the glasses, but you also like the movie.

Aaron (05:08)
Does that answer your question?

yeah, like. I

mean, yeah, it was like a big summer blockbuster in the 90s. Of course I saw it with Will Smith. Are you kidding? Yeah, I saw.

Ade (05:22)
How

old were you?

Aaron (05:25)
12, 99, right?

Ade (05:28)
Yeah.

Aaron (05:30)
Yeah, was 12 that summer.

Ade (05:31)
Yeah, that helps.

Did you know at the time how big of a bomb it was or how critically panned it was?

Aaron (05:39)
I don't think so. I don't think I paid attention to that stuff. I just saw commercials for movies and I was like, I have to see this.

Ade (05:45)
Yeah.

Yeah. some interesting backgrounds about this movie. Did you know what Will Smith almost started instead of this movie?

Aaron (05:59)
I mean, I found out years later, but yeah. Oops.

Ade (06:03)
He turned down the role of Neo in the Matrix. mean, what that would be just a crazy alternate timeline. My life would be completely different if, if the Matrix movie started Will Smith and, ⁓ I think Val Kilmer would have been Morpheus because the, they were like, well, we couldn't have two black people starring in it.

Aaron (06:07)
Yeah, to be in this.

Yeah.

Ade (06:30)
so he'd have to have a white Morpheus.

Aaron (06:34)
Ugh, that's a completely different movie.

Ade (06:36)
It is a completely different movie. I mean, I assume it would have been closer to Wild Wild West than to The Matrix that we know.

Aaron (06:41)
Wow.

Yeah, I would have to guess so. I mean, the Wachowskis, you'd think they've got like a pretty strong vision. They like I don't think it could work out How do you how do you get Will Smith? Will Smith is not. At all, the right type of character for Neo, like there's you can't have wisecracks and like. Have him shirtless.

Ade (07:01)
now.

Right.

Exactly. Exactly. But they apparently offered it to him and he said he's he's come out and talk. Will Smith has come out and talk about him turning it down. And he said something about how the work Huskies had only had one movie to date that was bound. And I think I've talked about this as one of my old picks. It was kind of a small indie like crime movie and.

Aaron (07:17)
It just doesn't work.

Ade (07:43)
Will Smith was in the meeting with them and they were trying to describe bullet time to him and he was just like really confused and he's like, who are these people? ⁓ basically just dismiss them and turn the world down.

Aaron (08:02)
Yeah,

he seems like the kind of person who wouldn't understand what they're doing.

Ade (08:06)
Well,

and especially this, I don't think he had been humbled much at this time. this is, I, I certainly don't know him personally, but this is just trying to piece together what I've read where he was one of the biggest movie stars at the time, you know, bad boys, men in black, ⁓ independence day. And I'm guessing if he would have taken the role, he would have tried to push his own vision into the movie.

Aaron (08:11)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ade (08:35)
added the wisecracks and the shirtless shots and all that stuff. I would just be crazy.

Aaron (08:40)
Yeah.

Man, can you imagine how much just movies would change if Will Smith had been in the matrix? ⁓

Ade (08:49)
in the matrix. I mean, I tell you, my life would be completely different. I don't

know. I can't even imagine it. Yeah.

Aaron (08:56)
Yeah, wild.

Ade (08:58)
anyway, he went on to do this, ⁓ movie and won five Razzie's, Robert Conrad, the original star of the TV show accepted the Razzie awards in person. It's kind of, yeah, it's kind of shade to how much he hated this adaptation of it.

Aaron (09:11)
I didn't know that.

That's good.

Ade (09:20)
what, one of the other tidbits that I found interesting was it opened on the same day as the South park movie, which was rated R. And apparently there were a bunch of news reports about teens buying a ticket for Wild Wild West and sneaking into the South park movie. Yeah. because, ⁓ the.

Aaron (09:38)
Good for them.

Ade (09:47)
I know something changed in terms of like cracking down, uh, kids sneaking into R rated movies. So it made like harder for kids to get into R rated movies, which I vaguely remember this as a teenager. I think like when I was, uh, 11, 12, like they didn't, they certainly didn't police like the PG 13 well, and I don't think they police the R that well either, but anyway, uh, so that may have inflated some of the box office.

Aaron (09:57)
Interesting.

Ade (10:16)
for Wild on West.

Aaron (10:19)
That's a shame, because at the time this came out, I think adjusting for inflation, was one of the most expensive movies ever made at the time.

Ade (10:28)
Yeah, it was huge.

Aaron (10:30)
and did not recoup all that money.

Ade (10:34)
know. Well, you liked it as a as a kid. Did you like it as an adult in modern age?

Aaron (10:43)
I thought it was fine compared to Jingle All the Way, which I really thought I would like. I like this more. But I mean, it's a pretty generic. Action comedy adventure, Western movie, it's there's nothing really special about it. I thought when I was a kid, I thought this was funnier than I found it as an adult.

Ade (10:49)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron (11:07)
I remember laughing at there's a scene at the beginning where Kevin Klein is dressed as a woman in a saloon or something for a long time. And he's there's like a whole song and dance number. And I remember thinking that was the funniest shit when I was a kid. And I'm like, I don't, I don't get it as an adult. It wasn't funny at all.

Ade (11:28)
Yeah, we've talked about this before, but I definitely feel like there was something the 90s and previous where just men wearing dresses carried a lot of heavy lifting.

Aaron (11:41)
Yeah, that was my thing with that scene was like that was the joke. wasn't even he didn't have like dialogue like a ton of dialogue or like jokes about, you know, what type of lady he is or whatever. Like there was a little bit of that, but it was mostly just him mumbling lyrics to a song.

Ade (11:48)
Nope.

Yeah, there was no joke there. I mean, maybe in the scene prior or just before the song and dance number where the joke was, ⁓ there's this guy attracted to him and doesn't know that he's actually a man. Like that was the joke. I just, again, felt kind of flat, ⁓ modernized.

Aaron (12:13)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, because there were several men that were attracted to Kevin Klein as a woman and he was a hideous looking woman. didn't get literally Salma Hayek is standing next to him and they choose Kevin Klein dressed as a woman over Salma Hayek.

Ade (12:39)
Yeah, which I just, so I want to come back to Selma Hayek, but quickly. So you said it wasn't as funny as you remember when you rewatch this. Did you laugh? How many times did you laugh out loud?

Aaron (12:49)
Yeah.

I distinctly remember two times that I laughed out loud. One of them, I laughed so hard I thought I was going to pass out. And it's the dumbest joke ever, but it just caught me completely off guard. The first time I really laughed was when they were they just gotten their orders at the beginning of the movie to go do whatever it was they were supposed to do.

Ade (13:08)
Okay. Wow.

Aaron (13:26)
And they're, got to go catch a train. And so Will Smith and Kevin Klein are racing to go catch this train. It's dumb. And, ⁓ and Will Smith takes off on his horse thinking he's got him beat. And Kevin Klein is his character is like all about gadgets. Like he creates these gadgets that like pop out of his suit. He's like inspector gadget, basically. he gets on this like.

Ade (13:38)
Okay. I mean.

Aaron (13:55)
giant penny farthing bicycle that's like motorized and he yells Avanti and then it like takes off and he like full on leans back as it takes. I just thought it was a funny gag, like a physical gag. It was funny. And then later in the movie, there's a scene where they're on the train and they're arguing, Will Smith and Kevin Klein are arguing about whether to take Salma Hayek along. Do you remember this scene?

Ade (14:20)
Yeah,

I do.

Aaron (14:23)
And they've already brought her along. She's like sleeping in the next train car and she comes in to like thank them for bringing her. you know this? You're laughing already.

Ade (14:35)
I am. I'm laughing at you laughing, but please continue.

Aaron (14:37)
⁓

she comes in and she's wearing this like nightgown type thing that's all baggy and billowy and she's like thanking them for, bringing her along and. Will Smith says something about how it's her clothing choice was a good choice. Like thanks for you look comfortable or whatever. And then, as she turns around, it has like, it's one of those.

Ade (14:57)
Yeah.

Aaron (15:01)
like pajamas that has the butt flap thing and it's open and you see her bare ass and as she leaves and Will Smith is like, this is exactly what I was worried about. She's she's a distraction. And Kevin Klein was like, I think she's a breath of fresh ass. I mean, a breast of fresh air. I laughed so hard at that scene. That was the best.

Ade (15:07)
Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, I enjoyed that scene for other reasons, if laughing at is your bag, then. ⁓

Aaron (15:30)
Perfect.

Ade (15:37)
Guess how many times I laughed during this movie. Good guess.

Aaron (15:39)
None.

Yeah. I mean, I think I chuckled more times than that, but those are the two jokes that I really kind of laughed at. It wasn't that funny of a movie,

Ade (15:53)
I had mostly confused face and trying to understand when jokes were supposed to be happening. And they were just such basic jokes. okay, so one of the, the lines that I hated the most was towards the end, Will Smith is fighting a bunch of henchmen and this henchman guy comes out with two swords, knives for hands, for arms.

Aaron (16:00)
I know.

Mm-hmm.

⁓

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Ade (16:21)
And he's fighting this guy, which I don't know, that character was just ridiculous in a sea of ridiculous characters. Like what is, what is this person? He's working in the bowels of the hen, of the villain's ship vehicle with, with two knives. Like what does he do? Like he has no function. Anyway. Yeah. Will Smith kicks him out of the vehicle and Will Smith says no more Mr. Knife guy.

Aaron (16:35)
vehicle.

He's security.

Yeah.

Ade (16:52)
And just like somebody wrote that and which fine that you know, there are no bad ideas in a brainstorm, but but they pick that out of all the alternatives. They shot it. They rewatched it. They edited this and we're like golden. This is this is going to get them. The theater is going to be ⁓ rolling in laughter.

Aaron (16:55)
Bye now.

Yeah.

I think like the eighties and nineties were the peak of action one liners. Like with Arnold and.

Ade (17:20)
I mean, we

still have movies with action one-liners, but they're actually funny. I don't know. Is it really just such a different sense of humor these days?

Aaron (17:31)
What's a recent one that's on par with like Yippee-Ki-Yay or...

Ade (17:37)
Well, I mean, those are iconic. I'm not going to, I don't think there's anything, but even just, I'm just saying even, ⁓ even a movie that says, you know, mediocre is anaconda had a bunch of things that like I laughed out loud or running man was just okay, but had a bunch of like funny one-liners and stuff like that. Like, sure. None of them are, none of them are iconic movies. I'm not going to.

Aaron (17:42)
Yeah, it peaked. It peaked in the 80s and the 90s.

Ade (18:07)
be able to quote them to you. Like I can die hard or terminate or anything like that. But yeah.

Aaron (18:11)
Yeah. You

just hate it because it's Will Smith.

Ade (18:17)
let's talk about Will Smith. What'd you think about his performance in this?

Aaron (18:23)
I don't know. It's it's what I expected. I can't I've had this conversation a few times this week where I can't believe how much my opinion of Will Smith has changed in my lifetime. When I was 12 years old, he was the coolest man on the planet ⁓ and he could do no wrong. Like this, I think, was the beginning of the end for his his movie stardom. For sure, this I think this was when it got to be a bit tiresome.

Ade (18:24)
Yeah.

Yeah, same.

Yeah.

It was.

Yeah, well, so obviously he boosted to fame with Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and even as a musician, his peak was certainly during the 90s. mentioned during and after Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, his probably biggest hits were Bad Boys. Why are you laughing?

Aaron (19:15)
Are you gonna

call it French press of Bel Air? Okay.

Ade (19:17)
No, I don't think

so. Independence Day, Bad Boys, ⁓ and Men in Black. that was just an incredible run, big hits. And I felt like in this movie, was just clear. He was like, all right, run it back. Let me play the exact same character I've played in every single one of those movies.

Aaron (19:29)
Yeah.

yeah.

Biggest star in the world.

Yeah.

Ade (19:46)
Everybody, this movie is set in the ⁓ post-Civil War era, 1860s, I think it was. And everybody in the movie is in a period piece. They're in period costumes, they're doing accents, and Will Smith couldn't even cut his hair. Like he was in the 1860s. He had a fade that was like... Like his hair... I actually had to ask ChadGBT, did black people have fades?

Aaron (19:54)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Ade (20:15)
In 1860s. I didn't think they did. I didn't think Clippers existed, but maybe in this alternate, you know, steampunk universe that is the Wild Wild West, like, but yeah, he didn't, he didn't try. It didn't seem like he tried at all to act. just, he just played the same person he's played in all the movies up to date. And I think if you look at his, his movie credits after this,

Aaron (20:17)
What did they say?

Hahaha

Yeah.

Ade (20:44)
was really where he tried to like push himself and yeah, Ali, ⁓ even Legend of Bagger Vance, which was, think, right after this, which flopped, but still he played somebody different, not a wisecracking hero saving the world sort of thing. And then, you know, Seven Pounds, Pursuit of Happiness. it was all like post Wild Wild West that you think of Will Smith trying to become an actor or

Aaron (20:47)
obvious ask your chasing.

Yeah.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ade (21:14)
Yeah, taking challenging roles.

Aaron (21:16)
He got scared straight.

Ade (21:18)
Yeah. Salma Hayek, was she the hottest actress of the 1990s?

Aaron (21:27)
Mmm.

No, no Halle Berry.

Ade (21:32)
I mean, maybe I feel like, I feel like Salma Hayek should at least be on the Mount Rushmore. Maybe it's, maybe it's her, Halle Berry, Jennifer Einstein.

Aaron (21:35)
Karen Diaz?

yeah.

This was a very sexy movie.

Ade (21:46)
It was a very sexy movie.

⁓ Selma Hayek unfortunately had nothing to do in this movie other than look sexy. mean, fortunately not fortunate. Yeah. Nothing. Nothing. did change the plot. She was just following the main characters along to find her husband. And then she found her husband without doing anything. She didn't, she didn't save anybody. didn't, she didn't fight anybody. She didn't.

Aaron (21:54)
Yeah, she really did nothing.

Yeah.

Ade (22:16)
figure anything out. She was just there.

Aaron (22:17)
Who was she claiming

her husband was? Her dad? For the whole movie? Yeah.

Ade (22:21)
She said, yeah. And then he was one of

the scientists that the villain captured for. I still didn't really understand why, but.

Aaron (22:30)
Yes.

So the the have we done a synopsis of this movie?

Ade (22:35)
No, we've just assumed everybody's watched it. Yeah.

Aaron (22:38)
Yeah,

I mean, it's basically a loosely tied remake to a 1960s show called The Wild Wild West. Will Smith is Jim West, Kevin Klein, Artemis Gordon, their special agents, I guess, for the president, who is Ulysses S. Grant, also played by Kevin Klein in this movie. And they have to.

Ade (23:01)
Yeah.

I don't know why.

Aaron (23:03)
I know it seems like an unnecessary choice. mean, he, his character's whole thing is like gadgets and costumes. So maybe that's the fun of it because there is a part in this movie where his character, Kevin Klein's character is pretending to be Ulysses S. Grant. And then the real Ulysses S. Grant comes out from the, you know, behind the corner and it's still Kevin Klein. It's Kevin Klein, both

Both characters are Kevin Klein. But anyway, they have to save Ulysses S. Grant from this Confederate scientist who is basically seeking revenge for losing the Civil War. he's like half a man. He's got no legs. I don't know why. ⁓

Ade (23:50)
It was,

was blown up in the war. And as best as I could tell they, so the, in the TV show, the, that villain is played by a dwarf. And so it seemed like they were kind of like, we don't want to do that in the movie, but so let's give him.

Aaron (23:53)
I guess.

Dwarf, yeah.

disability.

Ade (24:16)
Let's give him

no legs so we can make some of the same jokes, I guess, as in the TV show. Yeah, I didn't really make a lot of sense. This movie is also very, there are a lot of jokes against hated cat people. Like, I mean, there are a lot of jokes. There are a lot of weird, just cultural things. Like there's this whole scene where Will Smith defend slavery.

Aaron (24:21)
no.

Yeah.

What? ⁓

Ade (24:43)
Do remember

this? When all the Confederate people are about to hang him because he's infiltrated this party. He infiltrates his costume party for Southern, former Southern, I don't know, military people. Yeah. Not disguised at all. And just hanging out. This is just not, not, not disguised, not trying to hide, just standing in the middle of the stairwell, watching them.

Aaron (24:49)
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

veterans, Confederate veterans.

Just a black guy walking around.

Yeah.

Ade (25:13)
And,

⁓ I don't understand what his plan is. I don't understand why they don't just kick him out right away. But anyway, eventually they try to hang him and he's like, wait, wait a second guys. And then he, he's like, I understand why you wanted slavery. And I it like goes on for the speech why he's defending and he's defending slavery. I guess it was supposed to be funny, but it just, I was like, wow, this is, ⁓ this is pretty dark.

Aaron (25:43)
I mean, I understand why they wanted slavery.

Ade (25:45)
do

you tell us? Tell us your reasons.

Aaron (25:52)
don't think it's right, but it doesn't take a genius to understand why they wanted it.

Ade (26:00)
Yeah, I guess so.

Aaron (26:01)
That was

a weird scene. That was when he had the little case of mistaken identity with the woman in the mask, right? He thought it was Kevin Klein dressed as a woman, but it was not. It was just a stranger and he, he quote unquote, drummed on her boobies. And that's what got him in trouble. Turns out there were some, yeah, there were some offensive jokes in this movie.

Ade (26:08)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron (26:30)
towards towards like the lgbtq community too a little bit at parts

Ade (26:36)
Yeah, that whole scene where, the train conductor, I forget the actor's name. He's, ⁓ yeah. is overhearing them talking about breast implants as part of disguises. That was just a very long cringe scene.

Aaron (26:42)
Amendment Walsh.

Mm-hmm.

I think that scene ends with Kevin Klein saying something about, my balls, I'm hard.

Ade (26:58)
Yeah.

Aaron (27:03)
or something like that? Or feel my breasts, I'm hard or something?

Ade (27:04)
I mean, I guess I could understand how that's... Yeah,

how that's really funny to a 12 year old boy in the 90s.

Aaron (27:11)
Yeah. Yeah. And the nineties.

Yeah.

Ade (27:16)
speaking of scenes with disguises and men dressing as women, I thought the worst scene that I've seen in a long time was towards the end when Will Smith's character rescues Kevin Klein's character. so to set the stage, the villain's plan, which we should talk about that for a little bit.

is to kidnap the president of the United States and sell off the U S back to respectively the British, the French, the Mexican government. And he's trying to get grant to agree to this, I guess, to sign some papers agreeing to hand the country over. And first of all,

I don't know that I should really try to make sense of the plot, but can you just, can you just do that? Like if you, this is, this is not me planning. So secret service, please. This is not evidence. ⁓ if you kidnap the president and just like, own the country now sign this. That seems not the right steps, but am I wrong?

Aaron (28:34)
Yeah, I mean, don't we have kind of a long standing

⁓ tradition of not negotiating with terrorists?

Ade (28:42)
But, but even if the president, even if you got the president to negotiate with you as a tech, I don't think the president just can unilaterally be like, all right, the country is now owned by this guy.

Aaron (28:52)
Yeah. And that Britain is just going to be like, all right, I guess we own it now. ⁓

Ade (28:56)
Yeah, I'll buy it from you.

⁓ the whole thing just, I didn't understand why he built this giant mechanical spider and how that played into his kidnapping plot. I didn't understand what every, why he kidnapped all these scientists throughout the movie, I guess to help them build the spider, but why? I don't know. And then some of them he killed, some of them he didn't. And they're all just sitting there witnessing the signing. And it just.

Aaron (29:28)
Yeah.

Ade (29:30)
most of the movie didn't make sense to me. understood that good guys were trying to find the bad guy and defeat him, but aside from that, nothing that anybody did make sense.

Aaron (29:32)
Yeah.

I think that's about sums up the plot.

Ade (29:46)
Yeah. And then even just a bunch of little things. Like I was like, do trains work this way? They're just getting into trains and being like, let's go to Utah. Like it's a car. I don't think, I don't think you could just like go anywhere.

Aaron (29:56)
Yeah.

They do treat it like

their own personal vehicle, like a car. It just takes them wherever they want to go.

Ade (30:03)
Yeah,

exactly. anyway, so this all culminates in this big scene where the villain has all the good guys except Will Smith captured. And then he makes this big speech to this room full of villains and he's about to kill Kevin Klein's character. And then you hear this music and I admitted the biggest groan.

that I have watching a movie so far, because I'm like, I think I know what's about to happen. And Will Smith goes on stage dressed as a belly dancer and starts belly dancing for the villain played by Kenneth Brownow. And Kenneth Brownow is just in the middle of this big like, you know, villain speech. He's just like, ooh, look at you. And like, I guess is so horny for this fake belly dancer that he just stops.

Aaron (30:34)
Yeah.

I hated this scene.

Ha ha.

The six foot

two Will Smith shaped belly dancer.

Ade (30:59)
Yeah.

who just got in, passed through all the security, is just able to start dancing for him and everyone's just like, okay, sure, I guess we'll stop the proceedings of you selling the United States off to us to watch you get a lap dance.

Aaron (31:14)
Yeah,

you're in control of this event now, I finish your dance while we all watch.

Ade (31:24)
I mean, this just felt like, so I should say the movie is credited, has six credited writers and went through multiple rewrites. And, and it just felt that way throughout where it was like, Hey, let's go this way. No, let's go this way. How do we get out of this situation? I don't know. How about we just put Will Smith on a dress and have him give a lap dance.

Aaron (31:33)
Wow.

That was a particularly rough scene to watch. I hated that. was like, there's no level of suspending disbelief to believe that they thought that that was a beautiful woman under that little lacy mask. It was obviously Will Smith. ⁓

Ade (32:04)
Right.

Yeah.

was not funny, it insulted our intelligence.

Yeah, I thought it was one of the worst scenes we've covered so far.

Aaron (32:19)
This, you can tell that this movie had a troubled production because it was originally, options for Richard Donner to direct, and Shane Black to write and starring Mel Gibson, which would have been an interesting movie. I think it would have probably been better than this, but they,

Apparently Richard Donner and Mel Gibson left the project to go make Maverick in 94 a few years before this came out, which is a pretty pretty good movie. Yeah. So, yeah, there was obviously some. There were a lot of drafts of this movie, and you can tell because so much of the movie is just super convenient writing.

Ade (32:49)
Yeah, which I, yeah, I liked that movie, yeah.

Aaron (33:07)
They all have like a gadget or a prop that does specifically the thing that they need it to do at that time. And like everything just kind of falls into their lap. The whole movie.

Ade (33:16)
Yeah.

Yeah. I should, I should say one of the most famous thing about this movie is the Kevin Smith story about John Peters, who produced this movie. And for those who haven't heard, I'll just give the brief version, but you should look up Kevin Smith and John Peters is that, ⁓ Kevin Smith was supposed to write a reboot of Superman and John Peters was producing.

Superman and Nicolas Cage was set to star. And I think he'd finished the script. And one of the notes that he received was basically this is great, but put in a giant mechanical spider and yeah. And Kevin Smith was like, what, why, why would Superman fight a mechanical spider? apparently Neil Gaiman gave a similar story when

Aaron (34:01)
in the third act.

Ade (34:14)
I think there was, was it Sandman was supposed to be adapted into movie? And apparently John Peters gave the same note, but John Peters produced this movie and you know, lo and behold, third act, giant mechanical spider. so, there's spiders throughout the movie, which I never really understood why the villain has a spider as a, on his flag, his own personal flag and it's never explained. And so, yeah, it just feels like a

Aaron (34:18)
Yeah. Yep.

Yeah.

He got a swish.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ade (34:42)
bunch of people involved or giving different notes and just random shit thrown into the movie.

Aaron (34:49)
Yeah, he's even got like spider themed decorations all throughout his house and stuff too. Like it seems like the spider was supposed to mean something.

Ade (34:59)
Yeah, he sent a cake to the president at the beginning of the movie and then a bunch of spiders came out of the cake. I don't know.

Aaron (35:08)
Yeah, it was weird. Did you like the CG in this movie?

Ade (35:09)
Symbolism. ⁓

Was that a trick question? ⁓ It seemed like green screen technology was in its infancy, even though it shouldn't have been. mean, this is the same year that the matrix came out, mind you.

Aaron (35:17)
You

Yeah, this is five years after Jurassic Park, and this is like the height of industrial light and magic and their abilities. ⁓ It looked like shit. It was really bad.

Ade (35:32)
Ha ha ha. ⁓

Yeah.

Yeah, it was terrible.

Speaking of the villain, was that the most elaborate villain facial hair that you've ever seen in a movie?

Aaron (35:51)
⁓

It was good. It's got to be up there. Yeah, it's got to be up there. I can't think of anything off the top of my head. That whole character was over the top. Like it was so campy. My only complaint with the villain other than his his plot was insane was his accent.

kind of came in. He had this like really southern like Louisiana, New Orleans accent. ⁓ Yeah, it was strange. It was a weird accent and it wasn't that consistent. But I felt like he knew what kind of movie they were making. It was silly and like campion over the top. Will Smith was trying way too hard to be cool in this movie.

Ade (36:20)
Yeah, I think he made it up for this movie.

man, the first scene where he's... What was happening in the first... Yeah, was he living in the water tower? There was a bed.

Aaron (36:44)
You know, the water tower.

No, he was just in

town. He was just in town. I think he was he was working. He was after the blood bath McGrath played by Ted Levine, who was like a Confederate officer or something.

Ade (37:02)
Yeah. But, but the first

scene that he's in a water tower, there's a bed in there and there's like stuff around like as if he's living in there and he's making out with this woman, which yeah, he just swam around in this water. I mean, that's gross, but anyway, like the whole thing seemed like let's, let's start off him being a sexy hero with a shirt off. And by the way,

Aaron (37:13)
They're in the water like they're in the water of the water tower

Yeah.

Ade (37:31)
Did you know you you get a shot of either his or a body doubles? ⁓

Aaron (37:37)
yeah. We rewound it. ⁓

I was like, was that his? Did I just see it's a, you know? Yeah, I don't, don't. John said maybe it was a modesty sock, which is not a term I've heard of before, but ⁓ that's apparently a thing.

Ade (37:49)
Yeah, his jewels.

I don't know he could have used

a butt double you think you think

Aaron (38:03)
I mean, there's there's frontal and view from behind. I could have been a body double, but I don't know. think that was.

Ade (38:09)
Yeah.

I should reiterate this was PG-13.

Aaron (38:18)
yeah.

And you can nearly see all of her top exposed in when she's in the water. ⁓ yeah, I think we talked about this movie, ⁓ new years just off podcasts. But I said, when I was 12 years old, this movie awoke something in me that scene. It was a sexy way to start the movie, nearly saw her naked. And I'm pretty sure I saw Will Smith stick as a 12 year old.

Ade (38:24)
Yeah.

Ha ha ha!

Yeah, it is a very.

It is a very, it is very

horny throughout.

I just have a bunch of random notes left. how, how do magnets work? Because I did not, I'm pretty sure, I, everything I know about magnets, I learned from Breaking Bad and this movie has undid all that knowledge.

Aaron (38:56)
I don't even think scientists know how magnets work.

Wait, what did we learn about magnets and breaking bands?

Ade (39:12)
They had the big scene about magnets and, to like erase some hard drive or to when they like tried to get into the evidence locker and they had this giant magnet in a truck. Yeah. ⁓ but they're, they spend so much time in this movie with this magnetic collar, ⁓ autonomous drone thing, chasing people. And it's just.

Aaron (39:24)
In the truck? Yeah, okay, I do remember that.

collar.

Yeah,

Ade (39:42)
Yeah. Yeah, it seems.

Aaron (39:42)
it was stupid. Why not just cut their head off? I don't understand the.

Ade (39:48)
Yeah. All adding all this drama and room for error to how you kill me.

Aaron (39:54)
Yeah, you're like,

you're almost giving him a chance to escape. Just kill them. What's the

Ade (39:58)
Yeah, just, I mean, just shoot them. Yeah, you

fix them with this collar. You set up this magnetized thing.

Aaron (40:06)
It shoots

this saw blade that like is a heat seeking saw blade that is chasing after the collar around their neck. And so they're fleeing trying to get away from this flying saw blade. It's a magnet. Yeah, I know, I know. But like it's, it's stupid.

Ade (40:14)
It's not heat seeking, it's magnet seeking.

Which by the

by the way, the two saw blades crash into each other and they explode. what? Magnets explode now? ⁓

Aaron (40:26)
Yeah.

That movie is

just one convenient plot device after another.

Ade (40:38)
Did you like the Will Smith song when you were 12 years old?

Aaron (40:42)
Yeah, of course.

Ade (40:44)
I mean,

I didn't know it was number one in the country for a while and I don't understand.

Aaron (40:48)
Big Willie style. Yeah, ⁓ I was a big Will

Smith fan in the 90s. I loved his music and his movies and his TV shows.

Ade (40:56)
Yeah, I liked a lot of it. I remember this song coming out and being like, this is idiotic. I mean, it's just him chanting wild on the West over and over.

Aaron (41:02)
⁓ It's

it's for white 12 year old boys, okay Yeah ⁓

Ade (41:06)
Alright, fine, fine. Not for me. ⁓

Yeah, I don't know. I have a ton of plot things that I don't, I don't even want to spend the breath covering. by the the end of the movie, can I, one plot device. Quick. Let's fight the villain. Let me invent and build an airplane from scratch.

Aaron (41:23)
Did you, ⁓

Yeah, that's never been done before. It's not like this was a concept that had already been proven. He was going off of Da Vinci's drawings from the like 1500s to create a flying machine.

Ade (41:45)
Yeah.

I mean,

I mean, quite literally, that's what in the movie he's like, the villains getting away. Let me invent an airplane. Where did he get the materials for it? I don't know. I'll stop.

Aaron (41:56)
Yeah.

Yep. Yeah.

Did you

ever watch the show it's based on?

Ade (42:08)
No, never, you?

Aaron (42:09)
I didn't

know. No, no, no, me neither. But I did some like a little bit of research on it. And I think that it was very like Gad Gadget heavy. But it was not to the extreme that the movie does, where it's for every scrape they get into. There's a there's a gadget to get them out of it.

Ade (42:24)
Yeah.

Aaron (42:28)
There were like,

hypnotizing devices and extendo. My favorite stupid ⁓ gadget in this movie is Kenneth Branagh has a cane or something as the villain and he's in a carriage outside of town and next to him is a carriage full of nitroglycerin and he's like gonna roll this carriage down into town and blow it up and his

Ade (42:52)
Yeah.

Aaron (42:59)
Kane extends to exactly the distance that he needs to lift a little pin out of the carriage that's holding it there. Yeah, how often do you need exactly that length of Kane that you've designed it?

Ade (43:03)
Right.

Yeah, like how often do you need them? mean

Yeah. I mean, it,

it does seem, it is very inspector gadget like in that it may be funny in a kid show for like a 30 minute episode. And like, that's part of the humor of it, but it was kind of maybe not just played too realistically. don't know. There was also, it was just annoying how many like Chekhov moments there were where. Yeah. Yeah.

Aaron (43:24)
Yeah.

Check out chain mail.

Ade (43:41)
Kevin Klein is like, I'm inventing a bulletproof vest, which just looks like a chain mail vest that's from medieval times. Yeah, I don't know. And then he makes some one-off comment about how he's modified Will Smith's wardrobe. Yeah. And Will Smith can't feel.

Aaron (43:48)
Yeah, he was knitting it with needles. Chainmail.

And then.

Just to the audience though, Will Smith doesn't know.

Ade (44:07)
when he puts on his coat that it's now 50 pounds.

Aaron (44:08)
He's

carrying around 25 pounds of chainmail in his jacket now

Ade (44:14)
Yeah, he gets shot and I guess the audience is supposed to be like, no, Will Smith is dead now. He gets shot. He falls a hundred feet to the ground and unfazed. Yeah. Like the fall would have killed you. Like his skull should have shattered.

Aaron (44:21)
Yeah.

Yeah. Unhurt.

Yeah. ⁓

Yeah. Did you like the music in this?

Did you notice the music? I thought it was good.

Ade (44:41)
Not really.

I thought the theme song sounded like the Superman theme song. almost, I meant to look up whether it was the theme song from the TV show, but.

Aaron (44:53)
It was the theme song from the TV show. ⁓ It's maybe one of the like truest adaptations from the TV show was the theme song in this, but the score was done by Elmer Bernstein, who was, I guess back in the day there was Leonard Bernstein who was

Ade (45:04)
Mm.

Aaron (45:17)
⁓ East Bernstein and then there was Elmer Bernstein spelled the same way pronounced differently who was the West Bernstein and he did like the movie ⁓ Composing he did true grit and the great escape and airplane and all these famous movies back in the day and then Leonard Bernstein was the Composer in New York, but yeah, I thought the music was pretty good at the time and when I like when I watched it ⁓

this week and then I looked up who it was and I was like, it makes sense it was somebody who knew what they were doing. But that was maybe the, the one of the better parts was the movie. The music was relatively unoffensive.

Ade (45:52)
Yeah. Yeah, I didn't really know.

Yeah, except for the credits when Will Smith's song came on.

Aaron (46:05)
I was so excited when that song came on in the end credits. I waited the whole movie for that.

Ade (46:13)
I was, I was trying to get.

Aaron (46:15)
What? Favorite Will Smith song. Go.

Ade (46:18)
I hate it, that's

summertime.

Aaron (46:22)
Is that a Will Smith song? Yeah, if it wasn't getting jiggy with it, didn't have it.

Ade (46:23)
You don't know summertime? Are you serious?

He didn't know. I think Summertime

is probably one of his biggest songs.

Aaron (46:39)
Didn't he do just the two of us with Jaden too?

Ade (46:43)
I don't have in my memory banks any Will Jaden do it?

Aaron (46:46)
You

I think he did, I thought it was good. ⁓

Ade (46:54)
You're

probably correct. I'm just saying it will not imprint. They won't make it to any of my playlists.

Aaron (47:00)
⁓ is, Summertime is with DJ Jazzy Jeff. This is, this is younger Will Smith. This is not mid to late nineties. This is early nineties. All right.

Ade (47:11)
Well, yeah, I mean, that's that's peak

fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Aaron (47:15)
Yeah, I watched Fresh Prince when I was a kid. Wasn't my favorite show. I was still I was still young for it. think at the time.

Ade (47:25)
It was, I think it's, yeah, when did Fresh Prince start? Because I feel like it was, it hit me right at the perfect time. Like I was like, I remember watching the premiere of it and being like, this is amazing. This is hilarious.

Aaron (47:27)
I was into his movies.

95.

90 to 96. It ran 147 episodes.

Ade (47:50)
Yeah, so I was in sixth or seventh grade when it started.

Aaron (47:54)
Yeah, was three.

Ade (47:55)
Anything else?

Aaron (47:55)
Even in

that show, though, he's not the best part of that show. I think Alfonso Riviera was the funniest character on Fresh Prince.

Ade (48:09)
yeah, mean, Will was cool and he wasn't, yeah, I mean, he wasn't the greatest actor. He's even talked, I feel like I've heard him talk before about how much he learned in doing that. And you can see, I feel like I've heard him talk about this or I've seen this in some of the early scenes. You can see him mouthing along with the words as,

Aaron (48:27)
Mm-hmm.

Ade (48:34)
as the other characters are talking, like he's memorized all the lines and he's just like, ⁓ and so he, yeah, he's completely new to acting and he's learning on the job.

Aaron (48:38)
Yeah.

I think that that is something that can happen even to an experienced actor. Because I know when the Star Wars prequels were being made, ⁓ they had to tell Ewan McGregor and Hayden Christensen to stop making the lightsaber sounds with their mouths. Yeah, because they were making the sounds during the filming. ⁓

Ade (48:56)
Yeah.

You

That's so funny

⁓ that's, that's incredibly hilarious.

Aaron (49:18)
Yeah, so I guess I can forgive him for that.

That's actually kind of adorable that he's mouthing their lines.

Ade (49:28)
Yeah.

Anything else about Wild West?

Aaron (49:33)
I don't think so. I just wish Will Smith had turned out differently. Just in general.

Ade (49:38)
Yeah.

So what are your alternate picks?

Aaron (49:44)
I kind of had to, I picked Blazing Saddles or Maverick. Maverick was already kind of tied to this movie, like we said, but Blazing Saddles has got to be top five favorite Western for me and probably one of the only ones that's out of my favorite Westerns. So yeah, I picked that one. What about you?

Ade (50:03)
Yeah.

I was going to say Silverado just because Kevin Kline was in it too. I love Silverado a lot. Back in the day, I haven't seen it in a while. I've been meaning to rewatch it. So maybe a little disingenuous to do it as my alternate pick because I don't remember enough of it, but I liked that movie.

Aaron (50:26)
Yeah.

What's that Danny Glover, Kevin Costner? I don't know if I've seen that one. Brian Denny, John Cleese, Jeff Goldblum. Huh.

Ade (50:34)
Yeah.

Yeah, great

cast. I watched it. I remember watching it a bunch of times in high school.

What is your favorite Western?

Aaron (50:48)
That's so hard to pick.

I'm, my favorite modern Western is definitely No Country for Old Men.

Ade (50:59)
Yeah. I mean, if you're going to, if you're going to make that a category, then I mean, that has to be number one.

Aaron (51:05)
Yeah,

I just think that's like a classic. It's a great non-traditional Western, but I think it's definitely a Western in my opinion. well, my favorite classic Western, ⁓ I don't know, probably one of the dollars trilogy with

Ade (51:28)
Yeah, I mean, Good, Bad, and Ugly is definitely one of my favorite. ⁓ I really like The Quick and the Dead too, the same Remy one with Leo and Sharon Stone.

Aaron (51:29)
Clint Eastwood. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah,

Gene Hackman. Yeah, Gene Hackman is such a what was such a great actor. I just watched Hoosiers again recently. I don't know if we talked about that on the podcast, but. It's a good movie.

Ade (51:41)
Yeah, that's probably it.

I don't think we did. Yeah,

I haven't seen that in 30 years, so.

Aaron (51:56)
really?

Ade (51:58)
Yeah, need to revisit that. Well, ⁓ anything else?

Aaron (52:07)
That's all for me.

Ade (52:09)
All right. Well, if you enjoyed this, please like or subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, send us an email at the worst movie podcast at gmail.com.

Aaron (52:21)
And I'm Aaron, thanks for listening to the Worst Movie Podcast.