My Movie Review: Wild Wild West(1999) June 9, 2008

I search for a movie to watch this afternoon coz I’m so bored. I saw the cd of this movie and since I don’t even remember the whole movie itself I decided to watch the movie. It’s so cool especially the special effects. The gadgets that Gordon made was so great. I wish I could make one of those cool inventions.

Movie Plot

Jim West is a guns-a-blazing former Civil War hero. Artemus Gordon is an inventive U.S. Marshal who excels in disguise. When the United States is threatened by psychotic Confederate Arliss Loveless, President Ulysses Grant teams the duo up to bring him to justice. On a hazard-packed train journey from Washington to Utah, West and Gordon must combine their skills to best Loveless and his diabolical machines.

Movie Trailer

Goofs

• Anachronisms: When Grant drives the stake in at the railroad ceremony, there is a clear shot of the flag in the background with 50 stars. From 1867-1877, the US flag had 37 stars.
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Loveless’ wheeled vehicle was referred to as a tank, but the name “tank” for such a vehicle wasn’t coined until the British used it as a cover name in the First World War. For the sake of the fiction, though, we can assume the British commanders present when Loveless’ “tank” was introduced influenced the later usage.
• Crew or equipment visible: When Jim West is hanging over the abyss, before the nitro destroys the saloon, you can see human legs between the legs of the horses.

• Continuity: The second time the Golden Spike bounces out of the hole in the sleeper at Promontary Point, it falls to the right. When the dignitary picks it up again to put it back in the hole, he picks it up from the left.
• Revealing mistakes: When Artemus “hammers” West onto the pool table in the train you can see the felt flex as West lands on it. A slate top wouldn’t flex, but the foam padding used to soften the landing would.
• Continuity: Initially, the horse cart filled with nitro is facing the saloon, horses on the near side, when West is dangling over the edge of a ridge. Later, when Loveless detaches the cart from the horses, it is shown as facing away from the saloon with the horses on the far side.
• Continuity: During the fight between McGrath and West in an upstairs hotel/saloon room, McGrath’s “trumpet ear” is missing (left side) when McGrath charges West. (It’s a very quick close-up of McGrath’s head.)
• Continuity: West strangles one of the machine room fighters with a chain, then throws him out the door. The chain’s end is visibly loose. When West and Loveless fall, West grabs on to the man, who is now hanging by his chain from the spider.
• Factual errors: It’s unlikely that McGrath would have been hypnotized so quickly.
• Factual errors: The collar magnets, high powered as they were, should have either attracted or repelled each other from the beginning. After Gordon hits West’s collar with the rock, West’s collar “reverses” polarity, causing it to attract to Gordon’s. However, if there was a complete reversal as is implied, Gordon and West’s collars should have repelled each other from the beginning. Therefore, Gordon and West should never have been able to jump into each other’s arms, let alone stand next to each other in the small perimeter afforded them when they first woke with the collars.
• Factual errors: In the movie, President Grant establishes the Secret Service in 1869, to protect the President. In reality, the Secret Service was founded in 1865, to fight counterfeiters. The agency started acting as Presidential bodyguards after the 1901 assassination of President McKinley.
• Continuity: The spider on West’s arm/hand.
• Continuity: A track bend disappears after the first shot of the tank.
• Factual errors: In the first panoramic shot of Washington, D.C., the dome of the Capitol is still under construction during the administration of President U.S. Grant, after the Civil War. The dome was completed in 1864, in time for the second Lincoln inauguration in March 1865.
• Anachronisms: West, Gordon, and President Grant are shown in the Oval Office, which was first constructed during the Taft Administration in 1909.
• Revealing mistakes: Grant’s fake beard glue is obvious in a close up at the spike driving ceremony.
• Continuity: When Loveless and James West are hanging from the spider while the wheelchair supports their weight, there are several shots of Loveless’ wheelchair release lever. The first shot shows no hands on the lever. The next shot shows Loveless’ hand on the lever. The next shot shows no hand on the lever. The next shot shows James West’s hand on top of Loveless’ hand on the lever.
• Continuity: When Loveless and James West fall from the spider, James is able to slide down a chain and the body of the ‘knife guy’ he killed earlier. When he stops himself, he is seen holding the person’s right leg with both hands. The next time he is seen, James is holding a leg in each hand.
• Incorrectly regarded as goofs: James West left his black horse behind when he first boarded the moving train and has it later. While normally a train would have to stop to board a horse, it’s quite possible the train has, as it does in the series, a corral designed to board horses while the train is in motion.
• Factual errors: If the magnetic collar rings are strong enough to drag Artemus along the desert toward a railroad, then he would never have the strength to separate himself from James West.
• Continuity: Before Miss East is shot, her right earring pops in and out of her collar.
• Revealing mistakes: When Jim grabs onto the rope during the hanging, the brief overhead shot reveals the much thinner stunt safety line running next to the rope.
• Factual errors: The Golden Spike was actually 3 separate spikes: a gold spike from California, a silver spike from Nevada, and a gold/silver/iron alloy spike from Arizona. It was presented, but never driven into the roadbed. Some accounts say it was driven in and immediately removed.
• Continuity: In one of the scenes when James West throws the “Knife Guy” from the spider you can plainly see the chain detach and fall. In the next scene you can see the chain still being pulled up and over. Later James West falls onto the knife guy and hangs there and he (Knife Guy) is magically reattached to the spider.
• Continuity: The same grocery store can plainly be seen burning in the old village and, in the next scene, getting blown up for the second time.
• Revealing mistakes: As the “tank” rolls up the riverbank (just before it massacred the Southern troops), you can see the “steel plating” bounce as if made of much lighter material and not soldered/welded on at all.
• Anachronisms: Much of the slang was not used in that time.
• Factual errors: Officials of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads drove in the final spikes, not President Grant.
• Continuity: When Jim picks up the corset box with the pop out gun, the bullet is too big in diameter to fit the gun.
• Factual errors: The states and territories of the U.S. are incorrect on the map in Grant’s office. Dr. Loveless also describes them incorrectly to his delegates.
• Continuity: When James West visits Washington, there is an establishing shot showing the partially constructed dome of the Capitol Building. The matte painting of the dome is clearly illuminated by the sun from the left of frame while the live action plate of the foreground, showing James West riding through town, is strongly lit by the sun, from the right of frame.
• Factual errors: It is highly unlikely that chain mail (which is all Gordon’s “impermeable” amounts to) would actually hold against a bullet fired from close range. Even if it did, the impact would almost certainly break bones and cause severe trauma.
• Continuity: When Artemus and Rita arrive at the massacre, the horse drawing their carriage is centered when seen from above. Before and after that, it is located to one side as the other horse drawing the carriage was ridden off by West.
• Continuity: When James and Artemus jump to each other and fall into the mud, James’ hat is muddy. In the next shot with him and Artemus walking along, his hat is clean.
• Continuity: When Gordon and West jump into the ravine and land in the mud, West’s magnetic collar is almost completely covered with mud. In the next shot, the collars are completely clean, yet their clothes are still covered.
• Continuity: When Jim’s and Artemus’ collars first clink together, the top plate of Jim’s collar goes under the top plate of Artemus’. In every shot afterward, they’re attached the other way.
• Continuity: When West and Gordon are walking in the desert with the collars around their necks, the dirt on their clothing changes between shots.
• Anachronisms: As West rides down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House in 1869, 20th-century overhang highway lights are visible behind the trees in the background.
• Anachronisms: As West is riding in the cart under the train, the track is clearly continuously welded rail, which was first used in the 1950s.
• Continuity: When Jim is trying to talk his way out of the hanging, the wide shots show him with the noose around his neck, somewhat restricting his movement. Close-up shots show him not only without the noose around his neck, but also standing freely, even casually gesturing.
• Continuity: When Jim gets on his horse at the White House, and Artie mounts his bike, he’s on a black horse. When he is passed by Artie on the bike, it’s a bay. When he’s chasing the train, he’s on his black horse again.
• Continuity: On the train when Rita comes in to say goodnight to Jim and Artemus, Jim is reclining on the couch with his hands behind his head. When he says goodnight to Rita, he takes his hat off. In the next shot, his hands are behind his head again.
• Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): Dr. Loveless claims he lost 35 feet of small intestine. The large and small intestine combined are less than 30 feet long.
• Continuity: When pursuing Loveless’ train, as James and Artemus’ train approaches the end of the tunnel, the girders holding up Loveless’ train are not visible. As soon as the train leaves the tunnel, the girders can be seen on either side of the track immediately at the end of the tunnel.
• Revealing mistakes: When Grant is driving the stake in at the railroad ceremony, the brand new railroad has very old, weathered sleepers (the wooden part between the rails).
• Factual errors: When the Golden Spike was driven, the two trains (Union Pacific’s No. 119 and Central Pacific’s “Jupiter”) were brought together, with only the width of a single tie separating them. In the movie, there is clearly a lot of room between them.
• Continuity: When Gordon projects Prof. Thadeus Morton’s last conscious image, Morton’s head is seen to be rotated clockwise, but the projected image turns opposite to what it should.
• Factual errors: When Jim and Artie are running though the field from the high power magnets, the corn is at least 5-6 feet tall. We are to assume this movie takes place in May. Corn never gets that tall until at least July-August.
• Errors in geography: At the end of the movie, West and Artemis are heading back to DC from Utah, which means heading east. However, they travel toward the sunset, which is to the west.
• Continuity: When Artemus fires on Loveless’ hydraulics (while Loveless is “stomping” on Jim with his mechanical “legs”), Loveless looks down and we see quite a bit of fluid squirting out of the mechanism. In the next scene, as Loveless’ “legs” fail and he sinks to the floor, there is no indication anywhere of the fluid.
• Continuity: In the first scene on the train, pushing the button at the back of the car led to a hammer coming down and the pool table turning over; the second time when West tells Artemis to push the button, it is obvious that no hammer came down. The button should have done the same thing both times.
• Continuity: When Jim mounts the spider first time, and when he falls down, he wears laced leather pants – but never before or after during the whole movie (without a realistic chance to change clothes).

Pictures