Kids, cover your eyes. Over on Instagram, Will Smith has posted a rather risqué photo to commemorate the 26th anniversary of one of the most notorious movies on his resumé. Currently, the steam punk sci-fi flop ranks fourth bottom for its Rotten Tomatoes score against the rest of his movies. So what better way to celebrate it with some almost full-frontal nudity?
Set in the 1870s, sci-fi western Wild Wild West starred Smith as Captain James “Jim” West, and grossed a considerable $222 million at the box office when it was released during the summer of 1999. Sadly, it was also universally panned and has an abysmal 16% Tomatometer score from reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes, a mere 28% Popcornmeter score with audiences. That less-than-stellar legacy didn’t stop Smith from having a bit of thirsty fun on social media however.
Smith posted a photo from one of the film’s scenes of him nude, save for the cowboy hat covering his modesty, with the caption “Wild Wild West came out 26 years ago today — sorry this is the only photo I could find”. Though audiences didn’t like the movie itself per se, the post of the scantily clad Smith has racked up over 65,000 likes, plus 1,500 comments, and counting on Instagram.
Looking back at Wild Wild West, it’s a shame that film tanked so hard. In theory, an action comedy with Smith, who in 1999 was at the top of the world with both a successful music and movie career, would be a bonafide hit. Furthermore, the creative team was top-notch. Barry Sonnenfeld, fresh off directing Smith’s mega-hit Men in Black helmed Wild Wild West, and Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Salma Hayek rounded out the star-studded cast. Though Wild Wild West‘s off-color and unbalanced script seems to be to blame here forcing a complicated and poorly executed sci-fi element into the existing movie’s madness, two of the three writers credited wrote the classic Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
It’s rare that Smith’s humor and charisma can’t save a project, as critic Michael O’Sullivan of The Washington Post lamented, “Smith’s abundant charm squandered by making him play second fiddle to a bunch of dumb machines that look like rejected maquettes from a Star Wars brainstorming session.” While Terence Rafferty of The New Yorker called the Wild Wild West “exhausting, utterly without feeling, and pointless” at the time, he did point out, “Smith looks great in his Western outfit.” Ever the jokester, Smith clearly felt the need that he looked great out of a Western outfit too in ’99, condemnations of Wild Wild West be damned.
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