What Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Wild Wild West is a big, loud, coarse adventure flick, with interesting visual styling including steampunk gadgets and an Old West setting. There's lots of cartoonish violence, including characters who are suddenly punched in the face and shot in the gut and then bleed gorily while their bodies are summarily dumped in the water to be fed to "the crabs." The viewer sees many dead bodies, and main characters are frequently in mortal jeopardy such as being suspended under a moving train, though such hijinks are usually played for laughs. There are many sexual situations as well, with characters rolling around intimately (no nudity), and prostitutes offering sexual services for pay. There is also racial humor: at one point Will Smith shucks-and-jives like a slave, and a group of white Southerners threaten to lynch him while Smith calls them "rednecks." Cursing is kept to a minimum, save for a few S-words, and a lot of coarse language like "boobies." The viewer is told that some characters are good and others bad, but all are violent and prone to trickery.
- Families can talk about the stereotypes in Westerns and why there are so few movies about the Wild West being made anymore.
- Talk about how women and African Americans are portrayed in this movie. Why are women so often sexualized in Hollywood movies?