YMMV / Wild Wild West

• Adaptation Displacement: Not everyone who has seen (or even heard of) this film is aware of the TV show it's based on, an impression helped by there being no mention of said show on the credits. This is especially true outside North America.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • There are some who think that when Rita lied when she said Professor Escobar was her husband rather than her father in order to dispose of Jim and Artemus after stringing them along with the hint of sex if they succeeded.
  • When Gordon asks to be shot in the heart (because he's wearing a bulletproof vest), Dr. Loveless coldly orders his henchwoman to shoot him in the head. Was he just being a dick, or did Gordon's overly wordy request raise his suspicions and he decided that a headshot would be the smart option?
• Awesome Music
  • For all of the film's mixed reception, Elmer Bernstein's score is fantastic, with some saying that the opening theme deserved a better film. Especially since this turned out to be the last Western that this master of scoring Westerns ever did.
  • The "Wild Wild West" song was everywhere when this movie came out. Beware. If you remember the words, it'll get stuck in your head forever.
  • Same for the song "Bailamos" by Enrique Iglesias, another song from the film's album and his first mainstream song to American audiences.
• Catharsis Factor: West causing Loveless to plunge to his death after all the horrible stuff he did.
• Complete Monster: Arliss Loveless is a former Confederate slaveholder and a technology expert with no allegiance to anyone but himself. He kidnaps a group of scientists to build new weapons of war for him, decapitating one of them for trying to warn the President. He slaughters General McGrath's men in front of him with a tank prototype as punishment for surrendering to the North during the Civil War, using the General's men as target practice; he kills the General himself when McGrath demands that he stop the massacre. He plans to destroy the United States unless the President surrenders to his new alliance, and firebombs a random frontier town to prove his point. Despite his earlier slaughter of a former Confederate troop for their disloyalty, he sells out the Confederacy that he fought for when he presents his plan to carve up the whole country amongst himself and a collection of foreign powers. In addition, it's revealed that he previously used his tank to wipe out a settlement of freed slaves, including Jim West's family, also for target practice.
• Critic-Proof: Despite both bad reviews and failing to recoup its production and marketing expenses, the film still attracted an audience, grossing $113.8 million in North America and another $108.3 million overseas, for a total of $222.1 million worldwide, and, adjusted for inflation, sold more tickets in North America than Smith's "return to form" film, Men in Black 3. Smith famously bragged; "That's how big I am. I bomb over $100 million." There have also been reports of some of the ticket buyers actually being underage teens who were sneaking into South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (which was released the same day) after having bought tickets to this movie.
• Crosses the Line Twice: A Black man and a Disabled paraplegiac hurling pun-based insults regarding each other should not be funny, but lo and behold it is here.
• Fan-Preferred Cut Content: Many people would have rather seen the Richard Donner/Shane Black version of the film.
• Ham and Cheese: A large part of what makes this film So Bad, It's Good. Mostly comes from Kenneth Branagh and Kevin Kline, though Will Smith is certainly not restraining himself.
• He's Just Hiding: Some fans like to hope one or more of Loveless’s Bodyguard Babes survive being knocked off the 80-foot spider vehicle.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The Spider Tank looks a tad too much like Metal Gear EXCELSUS.
• Memetic Mutation: The Spider Tank, which has since become associated with producer Jon Peters' obsession with giant spiders due to an anecdote from Kevin Smith.
• Mis-blamed: Contrary to popular belief, Jon Peters was not responsible for the giant spider. That was from the original script and Peters was actually against it, but Barry Sonnenfeld stuck up for it.
• Narm Charm: The film is best enjoyed by not taking it too seriously. Particular mention to the (in)famous giant spider robot, which looks cool as hell both in terms of design and in the special effects that made it happen. Its first appearance at the start of the third act is either going to be the moment you throw up your hands and give up on the film, or the moment you go all-in on enjoying the cheesy absurdity.
• Older Than They Think: Two years before the film's release, the animated Cattle Punk series The New Adventures of Zorro (1997) already featured an episode where a mad scientist bound to a steampowered wheelchair creates a giant walking robot equipped with cannons to get revenge on his enemies. Even the design of the professor's wheelchair is so similar to that of Loveless that it makes the whole coincidence unlikely.
• Questionable Casting:
  • The painfully obvious one. Race Lift aside, Will Smith's Not Even Bothering with the Accent.
  • Shakespearean thespian Kenneth Branagh as a wheelchair-bound evil Steampunk genius. It doesn't stop him from giving a good performance even with a bad accent that sounds more natural than anything his American costars use.
  • Kevin Kline as Straight Man Artemus Gordon (which was hated by Kline, leading to rewrites that blurred the line with The Funny Guy Jim West) and President Grant in the same movie. And the same scene. And then they had Kline as Gordon impersonate Kline as Grant. The Symbolism, if any, is clearly Faux.
    • Actually, when it comes to the President Grant casting, this is more along the lines of Fridge Brilliance. Artemus Gordon in the original series was the disguise specialist and frequently wore one when he and Jim were investigating. Anything from fishermen to chefs to an upper crust dandy. However, you could still tell that it was Ross Martin no matter what the disguise was. If the role of Grant had been cast with another actor and Kevin Kline was just Gordon, when he disguises himself near the end, it would be pretty clear which one was actually Grant. By having Kline play both roles, it means that Kline's President Grant disguise is going to be flawless, because he's playing both roles.
• Squick: The film proper starts out with Jim West romancing a lady - in a water tower. Somebody's going to drink that.
  • It actually looks like they were in the tank used to refill the boiler tank on steam locomotives.
• So Bad, It's Good: Consensus is that the film is an endless failed attempt at humor, combined with bizarre casting choices and a script that doesn't respect its source material, but few would call the result a boring product by any stretch of the word. It helps that the film is quite of a spectacle, with gadgets and effects able to make Steampunk fans drool, an epic soundtrack, and a cast in full Ham and Cheese.
• Took the Bad Film Seriously: Kevin Kline put in a lot of work to portray Ulysses S. Grant correctly by reading everything he could about the president and interviewing Grant scholars. He then put in a performance so distinguished from Artemus Gordon that many didn't realize he played two characters in the film.
  • For his part, Kenneth Branagh gives it his all in his role as Loveless, never acts like the role is beneath him, and creates a villain you love to hate.
• Values Dissonance: The Running Gag of West and Loveless engaging in Volleying Insults about the other being disabled and black, respectively. Barely acceptable in the edgy late 90s, very much not today. It still Crosses the Line Twice at points, though.
• Values Resonance: Despite the film's numerous shortcomings, this is one of the few high-profile Hollywood Westerns that isn't named Blazing Saddles that openly acknowledges the fervent racism of the setting and time that existed against African-Americans. Loveless is also a white supremacist who seeks to restore the Confederacy and these are unambiguously and unapologetically treated as villainous acts.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Regardless of the film itself, it must be noted that the visual effects are quite good and still hold up nicely more than twenty years later.

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