if you haven't plunked down your hard-earned money yet for " wild wild west , " the latest summer holiday offering from will smith , let me say right now that your money will be better spent on a starbuck's frappacino or on a ben & jerry's sundae . these treats are great relief from the summer heat . in contrast , <NEG> this film made me simmer in disappointment </NEG> . i can accept the fact that summer movies tend to put more weight into special effects and that good stories and flavorful characters usually take a back seat . this was true of star wars episode i , but at least in that film , the story and the characters were still in the back seat . in this film , they are no where to be found . what remains are <NEG> hundreds of male extras costumed as gunslingers and foppish aristocrats </NEG> , lots of female extras who look like can-can dancers , and <NEG> a clunky , 80-foot tall instrument of destruction that resembles a mechanical tarantula </NEG> . two men are asked to stop this threat . one is artemus gordon ( kevin kline ) , an inventor who uses his intellect and array of disguises to best his opponents . among his creations are false breasts and the bulletproof vest . the other man is jim west ( will smith ) , who prefers the shoot-first-then-shoot-some-more method of investigating . although their individual talents must be combined to achieve success , <NEG> their interaction with one another merely seemed like a second rate </NEG> , two-man vaudevillian act . for example , there is a scene where west , being more debonair than the reserved gordon , notes that the fake breasts should be filled with water rather than buckwheat , which is what it is currently filled with . " now touch my breast , " west says . gordon does so and then softly coos his approval . <NEG> i found myself groaning at this kind of silliness </NEG> . <NEG> the script fails to generate any sense of drama , humor , or fun for that matter </NEG> . i did enjoy kline's reserved performance , but was surprised at how much latitude they gave to smith . could it be that will smith is just so bankable that he's not even required to act ? it was as if the director was yelling " will smith , do your own thing . . . and action ! " here's an example . in this scene , will smith is about to be hanged by a group of angry white people . he must endear himself to the crowd to escape . the director yells , " will smith , do your own thing . . . and action ! " in another scene , he has to masquerade as a belly dancer in order to save his comrades . " will smith , do your own thing . . . and action ! " <NEG> worse still , the final battle scene aboard the mechanical tarantula is a horrid mess </NEG> . there are cogs spinning and pulleys pulling and levers going up and down everywhere you look . there's actually a lot of imagination at work in this film . there are some genuinely clever inventions and gizmos introduced , but all of this imagination is <NEG> wasted </NEG> in a film that is <NEG> visually cluttered and dramatically flat </NEG> . and that's too bad because if there was more focus on the story rather than will smith just doing his 'thing , ' this film might have been palatable . as it turns out , " wild wild west " is <NEG> the wild , wild worst and receives my vote for biggest disappointment </NEG> of the year .
