After watching it twice in a row (sigh..great concept, ruined), I noticed two nits:

1. When Jim West is watching Artemis Gordon go through his "martial arts warmup," West is in a relaxed fighting postion from one camera angle, but standing straight up from another.

2. Loveless destroys the engine of General Grant's train twice, despite obivously re-aiming his weapon between shots.

Southern Utah Is Over 200 Miles From Promontory Point... It Would Take Them Hours On Horseback Or On Spider...

How about the biggest nit of all? The Secret Service was not created to protect the President, but to fight counterfeiting and other illegal money activities - that's why the Secret Service comes under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department. They could have at least come up with better reasoning for having West and Gordon as Secret Service agents attached to the President than that!

Oh, I forgot the other nit - when the scene cuts to Washington, we see a shot of the Capitol building with the dome under construction and ships in port to the left. There's only one problem - by the angle of the Capital and the side that we were seeing (the West side), it was obvious that we were looking down Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House towards the Capitol, and the ships were docked to the left, or north side, of Pennsylvania Avenue. First off, the Potomoac River is not deep enough for ships that size to make port that far up; second, Washington D.C. was not used as a port (AFAIK); third, and most importantly, even if the first two points were not true, there was no way that the docks would have been north of the Mall and Pennsylvania Avenue - it's just not possible.

Funny movie. I love Munitia!

The movie's been out long enough, I'll add two more that involve spoilers, of sorts:

In one gunfight sequence, James West shoots everyone in the room. As he leaves, we're given a shot of all the dead bodies on the floor. As he steps out the door, a body drops from the ceiling. Ha ha, big laughs--except that he never pointed his gun up. Maybe a bullet ricocheted?

Maybe a nit, maybe not: Loveless calls his first weapon a "tank." "Tank" was a code name American forces used to disguise shipments of their new weapons. It would have been a nice touch for Loveless to name his weapon something else.

IIRC the term "tank" came up because the Brits shipped their newly invented vehicles as "water tanks for St. Petersburg" over the channel in WWI.

Thanks, Electron. I was trying to remember it off the top of my head. And, really, is it a nit? I mean, the real nit would be that the weapon in question wasn't invented until WWI, and not by a man named Loveless. But, we're dealing with quasi-fantasy here. It just struck me as odd that Loveless chose such a bland name for his weapon. I mean, in the old West, would "tank" be a word to strike fear into one's enemies?

Grungy nitpicking, at very best.

Also, another DC nit. This flick has the half-finished Capitol dome at the beginning. The dome should be finished by now. It was completed during the Civil War.

here's a nit

how did the giant spider sneak up on the president and others at the final spike in the railroad celebration? was it not big enough or was it too quiet for them?

Apparently, so quiet it shook the whole ground. Maybe it picked up some stealth tips from the T-Rex in "Jurassic Park"? You know, the one that was shaking the whole jeep at one point, but managed to sneak in on our heroes at the end. Stealth dino, meet stealth death machine.

My nitpicks are as numerically proceeds:
1) How did Capt. James West cause the chrome-domed minion to short-circuit?
2) How come the villain's wheelchair's gun's projectile perforated James's pants but not injure him in the process?
3) The chain-laden thug plummets freely away from the metal spider-shaped mobile device. Yet, Capt. James West catches onto the same thug, who is now attached to the device, later when he and the villain plunge downward.

A titanic waste of $175 million. Kevin Kline, so good in "Dave" and "The Big Chill" sleepwalks here. Will Smith is still in "ID4/Fresh Prince" mode.

Dr. Loveless seems to have access to technology, that is far too ahead of its time. I'm not talking about the giant spider. I'm talking about the robot guy. I doubt he could make that if he lived in 2000.

I was thinking that it was a play on the steel hook replacements available for prostetics at the time period and played very broadly for the humor factor more than anything else.

2. Loveless destroys the engine of General Grant's train twice, despite obivously re-aiming his weapon between shots

Weren't there two different trains facing each other?

Watching the giant spider, I wonder how this is supposed to work: the weight is much too great for the legs if more than one leg is lifted at one time, and it takes ages for the legs to reach the ground again. (Maybe it was supposed to be unrealistic and I missed the joke, but we are nitpickers here, aren't we?) If loveless tried to copy normal spiders, he should have studied them more carefully; also, most insects work only on a certain scale-level and are impossible beyond a certain size.

But overall a very funny movie.

Loveless' plan is utter foolishness.

1. Are we to believe that the British, the French, the Spanish and the Mexican governments are all going to sign on to this plan on the word of a clearly insane fanatic? Even if they knew about the spider and the proto-tank he built, you need a lot more than that to conquer a country the size of the US at that time.

2. Even if they sign on with Loveless' plans, Grant can't just sign a treaty whenever he feels like it. Congress has to ratify any treaty he tries to make. Would they really sign a treaty that would dismantle the country and end their offices? I wouldn't be surprised if Grant were impeached for sending such a treaty to them, right before sending the army to fight Loveless.

3. Does Loveless think his threats would scare Grant into surrendering? I doubt shooting Gordon would intimidate a man who fought some of the nastiest battles of the Civil War. I also doubt trashing a few buildings would scare the man who besieged and conquered Vicksburg. All it would likely accomplish is to solidify his position.

3a. About the Impermeable, I seriously doubt chainmail makes a good bulletproof vest, especially at close range. Bullets hit a lot harder than arrows, and even then, people wore padding under it to help absorb the impact.

4. How was West able to distract Loveless during his ceremony? Would he really stop in the midst of trying to get Grant to sign his treaty, to watch some woman he didn't hire dance for him? If he had simply said he had no idea who this person is and had West shot, he might have at least lived, if not won.

5. Even if Loveless somehow got Grant to sign the treaty and dismantle the USA, does he think the American people will meekly accept this sudden change of government? Remember that this is a few years after the Civil War, and the country is filled with men who have fought, and own their own weapons. Even if he's crazy enough to assume such a thing, I doubt his allies would follow suit. Just the possibility of a massive, expensive military commitment to secure their new territory would seem to dissuade them from signing on.

6. If by some miracle, all that Loveless hopes comes to pass, just how long will his private little empire of the northwestern US and Manhattan last? He seems to count on the British, French and Mexicans keeping whatever agreements they have with him not to attack him. He also seems to count on his gadgets being able to singlehandedly intimidate anyone inside or out from attacking him. He has to, since he seems to have no plans to build up a conventional military, and even considers them obsolete in the face of his inventions.

In addition to the giant iron spider being unrealistic, it is also poor at its intended function, which is a replacement for military forces.

First, it doesn't appear to have armor, especially not on the legs, which are exposed. While the entire thing is made of metal, that doesn't necessarily mean it's armored. I imagine if could survive having small arms fired at it, but artillery would kill it.

Second, for its size, it is incredibly poorly armed. The only apparent weapons it has are the flamethrower slung under the body, and one gatling gun mounted in the pilot's chamber.

Third, speaking of the pilot's chamber, it is exposed to the open air, so it's vulnerable both to artillery fire and snipers.

Fourth, it probably does not have a long operational range. The inside of the spider appears to be dominated by the engine. Any spare room is taken up by supplies of water and coal to run the engine, and a tank of fuel for the flamethrower. There doesn't appear to be much room for a food supply or quarters for the crew. In addition, it probably has to stop regularly for maintenance, refilling the tanks and the coal chamber, and to let the crew eat and rest. As there is limited room for consumables aboard the spider, it can't operate very far from a source of water, coal, axle grease, spare parts and food.

Fifth, the spider is a poor choice to replace conventional forces in defending Loveless's personal empire, since he's going to need an army to support it anyway. He's going to need a large number of troops to convey supplies to the spider as well as to defend the supply train, and another large number of troops to defend it while it is inactive. This would be a huge expenditure of men and resources for the tiny amount of armament the spider contributes to a battle. Also, there's only one spider, and it can only be in one place at a time. An invasion or rebellion in more than one location could easily swamp it, as it can only engage one enemy force at a time. Since it seems to operate on open plains almost exclusively, I can assume that it has difficulty going over mountains or across rivers, and since it needs a lot of water, going across a desert will be slow also, so it will avoid them. This limits its options to get to the enemy, who can negotiate those terrains much better and faster.

Since Loveless has no intention of hiring an army, the spider will have to engage an enemy alone. Said enemy would have the option of sending out scouts to follow it, relay its heading and position to other units who can be waiting for it to approach a prepared postion with artillery, or to send cavalry, with artillery, to follow it until it has to stop, and attack while it's being maintained, resupplied or the engine is cooling off. They could even just send cavalry to raid the crew's encampment while they rest up.

Loveless' plan is utter foolishness.

So was the whole movie. 'Nuff said from me.

This is another guilty pleasure of mine. It of course was chock full of gaping plot holes and historical inaccuracies galore, but I do actually still like watching it from time to time.

For one thing, I liked the opening theme which was scored by Elmer Bernstein. And I also still like the Will Smith song that accompanied the ending credits. And I didn't learn until years later when I bought a Stevie Wonder compilation CD that Smith *heavily* sampled Wonder's "I Wish" for the hit song he did for the film. That sure was a surprise, I must never have heard the original before!

Anyway, everything said by others above here already explain pretty much everything wrong with the movie. I remember reading on the IMDB that when it was originally shown to test audiences, they didn't know that it was supposed to be a comedy so the *four* writers of it added so-called "comedic" dialogue for the re-shoot, some of which was pretty awkward and unnecessary.

Also, one of the Warner Brothers producers, Jon Peters, was apparently adamant about having a giant spider in the movie, and director Kevin Smith spoke about Peters on his first "Evening With" concert special. This was back when Smith was originally hired to work on a "Superman" sequel where Nic Cage would have portrayed the character, BTW. And Peters really REALLY wanted Supes to fight a giant spider, something that Smith didn't think would work and therefore didn't go for. He was then released from the project at WB, but at least it made for a pretty amusing story, and the giant mechanical spider made it's way into this movie instead. Wow!

So like I said, this is more of a movie that I can enjoy and not really think too hard about. And it's a nitpicker's dream, as we can see by the contributions to the board already here. But my point is that this is not one of those bad movies that I hate and that I would curse the actors, producers, writers, and director for unleashing upon the world. Believe it or not, I just don't get that worked up about this one. It's true!