‘Wild Wild’ Race to the Finish Line

When director Barry Sonnenfeld watched his new Warner Bros. feature “Wild Wild West” last week--finally complete with visual effects and soundtrack--he was moved to plant a triumphant kiss on rerecording mixer Kevin O’Connell. “The first time that’s happened to me in 21 years,” the 13-time Oscar-nominated sound artist joked, rolling his eyes.

Starring Will Smith and Kevin Kline, the update of CBS’ fantasy-western TV series of the 1960s will be released June 30. The studio has kept the picture under unusually tight wraps amid rumors that it is way over its $105-million budget and has left test audiences underwhelmed. Sonnenfeld recently went back for a few weeks of re-shooting to sharpen the film’s humor.

But the director who teamed with Smith two years ago on the 1997 hit “Men in Black” has shrugged off those whisperings, and a week before the first press previews, he coolly allowed a peek at the film’s climactic 14 minutes. It was the final day of sound post-production, and he was in the elegantly utilitarian Cary Grant dubbing stage at Sony Pictures Studios, giving it a few final tweaks with mixers O’Connell and his partner, five-time Oscar nominee Greg Russell.

Sonnenfeld, a New York native who at turns has the air of an impish uncle--and then a bit of an acerbic and distracted physics professor--asked that the film’s surprises be kept intact. This much can be said: A dubbing print of the effects-laden last reel hinted at a quirky tone that mixes comedy and violence and a mock-tender bonding of the charismatic co-stars, playing federal secret agents who, Sonnenfeld said, start out antagonistic toward each other.

The ending features an attack on a western town by a monstrous 80-foot-tall Jules Verne-esque tarantula--in shots made familiar by the trailer--and a kidnapped President Ulysses S. Grant’s rescue by heroes James T. West (Smith) and Artemus Gordon (Kline), who swoop down aboard a canvas-winged air scooter. There’s a spectacular fight sequence inside the richly decorated machine and then a cliffhanger finale.

“The challenge is taking so much that’s visually happening and make it not feel like a train wreck. We’re trying to let you hear it all--hear what you’re seeing,” O’Connell said. And as he watched shots of the tarantula steps shaking the left side of the dubbing room, then the right, Russell added: “Well, we’re making full use of the surround sound.”

“Kevin and Greg are able to make the movie sound really, really big and manly, like an important, big summer movie, and it doesn’t just become loud,” Sonnenfeld said.

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O’Connell and Russell first teamed on the 1989 Ridley Scott feature “Black Rain” and together received Oscar nominations last year for both “The Mask of Zorro” and “Armageddon.”

Sonnenfeld sought distinctive touches throughout the seven weeks of sound work on “Wild Wild West.” There are madcap turns relying on precise comic timing--he described with relish the placement of sheep bleats off-camera during a brothel scene. He found a spot for the original show’s familiar theme, which rings out when the heroes gather courage for a key battle. And there’s his vision of the grandly mechanical set piece.

Actually, the tarantula exists only as a small model that was laser-scanned into computers by technicians at Industrial Light & Magic, Sonnenfeld explained.

“Then it’s totally detailed,” he went on. “They [ILM] add texture and additional wires; then once it’s in the computer, the computer knows every single angle on it, and you can tell the computer what lens you’re using, so if it’s a wide-angle lens, it will stretch things. It’s extraordinary.”

Only one full-size prop was built, an 8-ton leg that stomps a wagon in one shot. The town itself was built in full size and one-quarter scale, he added. A key element of the often absurdly outrageous TV show--the ingenious gimmickry using 1869 technology--presented one interesting problem. That is, the smoke-belching, rattling steam-powered war machine had to sound kind of old and rattly.

“It’s state-of-the-art for that era--it leaks oil and burns wood, and one of the challenges for the sound was to make sure we didn’t use things like turbine sounds or things that sounded really cool but didn’t sound like 1869 technology,” Sonnenfeld said. “So we had a lot of cool sounds that we took out that were too modern for the era.”

The day’s work also underscored what seemed be an edgy mix of violence and comedy. In one sequence, the trio fine-tuned tortured screams from people whose wagon is hit by one of the tarantula’s fireballs. Isolated and replayed several times, the panic and terror in the voices emerge quite clearly, but they’ll be heard for barely a second in the finished print.

Then, in a climactic fight scene in the belly of the tarantula, Smith swings a 3-foot-long wrench to ward off a metal-headed villain. Sonnenfeld asked for a different ringing sound with each blow of the wrench. Russell applied them as sound effects editor Sean Garnhart cued them up: Clank. Clunk. Clonk. And one last blow on top of the noggin: Blonk-k-k-k.

Smith’s character tosses off jokes as he tosses bad guys overboard. “I thought somebody here promised me a whuppin’,” he cracks at one point.

Ironically, rumors that the production was in trouble erupted two months ago when Sonnenfeld shot some additional footage, by all accounts, to punch up the humor. The studio has press junket screenings scheduled for this weekend but won’t screen the movie for critics until two days before the film’s release.

Some people claiming to have been in test audiences have posted reviews on the Internet. Their comments are generally mixed--some say co-star Salma Hayek is underutilized, the Kline-Smith pairing doesn’t work and that sending up of 1869 attitudes on race misfires--though there are raves as well.

“Often the filmmaker gets a surprise when he screens his movie,” Sonnenfeld mused at one point during the sound editing. “He discovers the audience will find something funny that he didn’t find funny, or things you think they’ll be confused about they have no problems with, or something you think is obvious they go, ‘How did they get their collars off?’ And you go, ‘What? That’s what they cared about?’ ”

Then it was back to a key sequence in which the evil Dr. Loveless (Kenneth Branagh), at the controls of the tarantula, hears West and Gordon approach by air, and turns for a look.

The director and mixers lit cigars and huddled to work up a cue for the shot on the soundtrack. They played with the whoosh and flapping of the scooter’s wings, then a tense, dramatic musical cue from the score by composer Elmer Bernstein, paired with voices of the heroes.

“Hey--that yee-hah! really helps,” Sonnenfeld declared with satisfaction. “This is the best part of making a movie,” Sonnenfeld said at last.

“When you’re in pre-production, you’re depressed because there are so many questions about everything,” he continued. “When you’re in production, it seems that all your really good ideas are going horribly wrong . . . and the whole time it’s getting worse and worse and worse.

“Then, finally, you come to Kevin and Greg, and the movie starts getting better and better. The music comes together for the first time, the effects are huge and different, and suddenly you put in funny lines on people’s backs that they didn’t say, or a funny burping sound, and suddenly you’re in control of your movie again.”