I don't blame Smith, since he's the most interesting cog in this runaway machine, hinting at a charming, off-handedly lethal African-American presence in the Old West that the screenplay can't quite support. Certainly he's ill-matched with Kline, a fine comic talent who's not firing on all cylinders here. Salma Hayek, whose ass is displayed almost like a trophy, is used as agreeable set dressing, while the maniacal Kenneth Branagh plays a legless fiend whose cackling, 110-decibel malevolence is more tedious than either menacing or amusing. (The cinematography, by Michael Ballhaus, is warm and welcoming and helps make the picture bearable.)

I've never been a big fan of director Barry Sonnenfeld (Get Shorty, Men in Black), but he's not winning many new ones by blaming bad Hollywood movies on (get this) the Internet. Y'see, unauthorized net-based reviews have apparently made studios skittish about test screening their expensive new movies, and Sonnenfeld actually believes that he can fix up a movie in post-production by showing it to audiences and than, apparently, sticking in some leftover jokes whenever he sees the test audiences getting bored. I can't help but figure, however, that it wouldn't hurt to try and get the movie in shape for public consumption before you start screening it rather than afterward.

USA, 1999