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Wild Wild West
Legless Southern inventor Dr. Arliss Loveless plans to rekindle the Civil War by assassinating President Ulysses S. Grant. Only two men can stop him: gunfighter James West and master-of-disguise and inventor Artemus Gordon. The two must team up to thwart Loveless' plans.
1999 · Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld · 106 min · Action · Adventure · Comedy · Science Fiction · Western · Screenplay in the scene database · 6 frames
Tagline
It's a whole new west.
Plot
Four years after the end of the American Civil War in 1869, U.S. Army Captain James T. "Jim" West and U.S. Marshal Artemus Gordon hunt for ex-Confederate General "Bloodbath" McGrath, who is seemingly responsible for a massacre in New Liberty that killed West's parents. U.S. President Ulysses S. Grant informs the two about the disappearances of America's key scientists and a treasonous plot by McGrath, and tasks them with finding the scientists before he inaugurates the first transcontinental railroad.
Aboard their train The Wanderer, West and Gordon examine the severed head of MIT scientist Thaddeus Morton, finding a clue that leads them to Dr. Arliss Loveless, a legless ex-Confederate soldier and scientist. Infiltrating Loveless's party, the duo rescue a woman named Rita Escobar, who asks for their help in rescuing her father Guillermo Escobar, who is one of the kidnapped scientists. Loveless demonstrates his steam-powered tank by using McGrath's soldiers as target practice, before shooting and leaving McGrath for dead for previously surrendering at Appomattox. West, Gordon and Rita find McGrath, who reveals he was framed by Loveless for the New Liberty massacre before dying. The trio pursue Loveless on The Wanderer, only to discover Loveless is following them on an artillery train. West disables Loveless's train before Rita accidentally incapacitates West, Gordon and herself with sleeping gas disguised as billiard balls.
West and Gordon wake up as Loveless pulls away in The Wanderer while taking Rita hostage, intending to capture Grant at the golden spike ceremony and leaving West and Gordon in a deadly trap. After narrowly escaping the trap, the duo stumble across Loveless's private railroad leading to his industrial complex hidden in Spider Canyon, where they witness Loveless's ultimate weapon, a gigantic mechanical spider with nitroglycerin cannons. At the ceremony, Loveless captures Grant and a disguised Gordon while West gets shot by one of Loveless's henchwomen upon being caught infiltrating the spider.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: S.S. Wilson, Brent Maddock, Jeffrey Price, Peter S. Seaman
- Cinematography: Michael Ballhaus
- Edited by: Jim Miller
- Music: Elmer Bernstein
- Production design: Bo Welch
- Produced by: Jon Peters, Barry Sonnenfeld
Cast
- Will Smith as Capt. James West
- Kevin Kline as U.S. Marshal Artemus Gordon / President Grant
- Kenneth Branagh as Dr. Arliss Loveless
- Salma Hayek Pinault as Rita Escobar
- M. Emmet Walsh as Coleman
- Ted Levine as General 'Bloodbath' McGrath
- Frederique van der Wal as Amazonia
- Musetta Vander as Munitia
- Sofia Eng as Miss Lippenrieder
- Bai Ling as Miss Mae Lee East
Production
- Country: United States of America, Canada
- Language: English
- Studios: Warner Bros. Pictures, Peters Entertainment, Sonnenfeld/Josephson Worldwide Entertainment, Todman, Simon, LeMasters Productions
- Budget: $170,000,000
- Box office: $222,104,681
- Themes: inventor, remake, steampunk, cowboy, impersonation, steam locomotive, gunfighter, drag, world domination, damsel in distress
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