Jonah Hex

First, I want to mention some of the good stuff. Josh Brolin is excellent as Hex, perfect casting, great job by Brolin, thoroughly enjoyable to watch. John Malkovich was very good in a role that could have easily been too over the top to be taken seriously. Fassbender was genuinely creepy, Jeffrey Dean Morgan was great, and Megan Fox looks gorgeous and her acting is not that bad. Combine that with an amazing soundtrack by Mastodon, (and a surprise cameo by Brent Hinds) I have to say I enjoyed the movie. The negatives: "The Weapon" - a weird, quasi-science, completely unexplained "nation-killer" invented by Eli Whitney... WTF? Stupid. While on the subject, why does the world have to be at stake? A simple revenge tale would have sufficed. Aidan Quinn was awful, but it probably wasn't his fault, unless he wrote his own lines. Why tell Hex's backstory with a couple of minutes of poorly animated crap with a voice-over when they could've filmed Hex's origin sequence and made it a much better movie? No idea, but I can't explain many of the choices that were made on this movie. Why was it only 80 minutes long? Who thought that was a good idea? Who cast Will Arnett in a straight role? I kept waiting for him to do something funny. To sum it up, there was some really good work done on this movie, but there were too many terrible decisions made that left it a disjointed mess in spite of its potential. As a life-long Jonah Hex fan, I was happy to see him captured so perfectly by Brolin, but disappointed as hell that the studio screwed up the movie so badly, and ruined any chance of this becoming a successful franchise.

This paint by numbers western revenge comic flick is certainly not offensive or ineffective to deserve such a negative buzz. 

Jonah Hex's family is killed. Scarred and back from the dead, he finds his families killer is dead. Feeling robbed of his revenge he becomes a bounty hunter but when America is put under threat he may just get his revenge after all. 

A star studded cast that includes Josh Brolin, John Malkovich and modern day starlet Megan Fox. With familiar faces  like Wes Bentley (P2) Michael Fassbender and Aidan Quinn to name a few.  It's mild mix of Outlaw Josey Wales (1976),  Wild, Wild West (1999) and Ghost Rider (2007). To it's credit it had great sets, location and make up with a competently written script and a great score taking it's queue from Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) and is reminiscent of many great westerns.

It's well directed by Jimmy Hayward and the lighting compliments the atmosphere, especially in the night time scenes.  It has lots of action and is laced with humour, the few supernatural elements coupled with some gun play keep it interesting and Hex is far from the turkey you may have been lead to believe. It's a dark comic adventure which is quite easy to swallow, and should be for the amount of talent and budget.  

With its short running time Hex is not as good, bad or ugly as Jonah lovers or critics would lead you to believe.

I'm hesitant to call this an out and out terrible movie as some have labelled it simply because it was mildly entertaining. There's a lot of action, some cool ideas, a great performance by Josh Brolin and the short 80 minute running time doesn't hurt it either.

The sad truth of the whole thing is that it just didn't come close to its potential. For starters, Jonah Hex didn't have to be macabre and supernatural...to my knowledge this wasn't even part of the original comic books that the movie is based on. The original story is simple, Jonah Hex's family is murdered, he's horribly scarred and left for dead. He gets better and sets out for revenge. It's a pretty classic western tale...one that we've seen before but given the general lack of western movies these days, that doesn't matter...there's plenty of room in theatres for a fun out for revenge Western. Having said all that, the supernatural ideas that they came up with are actually kinda cool, and I would've been happy to see them mixed in, if only they'd been handled better. Instead these elements seem tossed in as an excuse to include CG effects that the box office loves oh so much.

The end result is an unfortunate mash up of a good ideas...that maybe could've worked if more time had been put into development, it feels like it was either slapped together too hastily or suffered from a massive reedit...during most of the film I couldn't shake the feeling that there was maybe a 2 hour+ director's cut lying on the floor somewhere which may or may not be a superior and more coherent film. I was looking forward Jonah Hex based on a short appearance he had in a Batman cartoon years ago...from that alone I thought the character had a lot of movie potential but I was let down. Brolin's performance is the best part of the movie. Malkovich is good but nothing too spectacular considering his track record, and even Megan Fox is half decent but she doesn't have a lot to do with her pretty much useless character.

This fantastic/terror/science-fiction/Western deals with a disfigured gunslinger named Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) , a scarred bounty hunter with warrants on his own head , he is wanted dead or alive , reward 50.000 dollars . President Grant (Aidan Quinn) is informed of the train massacre by Lieutenant Grass (Will Arnett) and surmises that Turnbull plans to attack the Union on the Fourth of July (the country centennial). Grass is told to find Jonah and hire him to stop Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) . The U.S.A. President and his assistant make an offer he cannot refuse: in exchange for his freedom, he must stop a terrorist who is ready to unleash Hell on Earth by means of an atomic bomb . After that , Jonah goes to a brothel and spends the night with Lilah (Megan Fox), a bitch attracted to the scarred gunfighter for more than just professional interest . Later on , Jonah heads to Fort Resurrection and Independence Harbor , Virginia , looking for the ominous criminal Quentin .

This moving picture blends action , western, shootouts, fantastic elements with hallucinogenics shots , besides a little bit violence. The final confrontation amongst the starring and contenders on the ship is overblown with amazing and stirring images . The storyline from Brian Tyler and Navaldine based on original comic books characters appearing in magazines published by DC Comics and created by John Albano & Tony DeZuniga , though the drawings are much better, thus the film is some boring and isn't well paced . The story bears certain resemblance to ¨Blueberry¨(2004) by Jean Kounen in similar style, theme , scenarios and hallucinatory special effects created by Ariel Velasco Shaw . The motion picture obtained limited success, as United States as Europe failed at box office . Exciting musical score fitting to action by Marco Beltrani . Colorful though dark cinematography by Amundsen , mostly filmed in New Orleans , Louisiana. Jimmy Hayward direction is mediocre , without originality and nothing new to show , being a simple copy based on the comic books. Hayward is an expert on Animation Department in charge of ¨Toys 2¨, ¨Bugs¨, ¨Monsters S.A.¨ , ¨Finding Nemo¨ and directed ¨Horton¨ and ¨Jonah Hex¨ this is his first film in real frames . Rating : acceptable and passable . The flick will appeal to peculiar and rare western buffs

Sometimes I wonder if people that reviewed this film actually watched it, or if they gave it a chance, not like second glancing at it because they're cooking dinner at the same time.

Jonah Hex is an entertaining little movie based upon the DC Comic Book character. To be honest, I've never read the comic, had little expectations coming in, and wouldn't have gone to see this in the theater. This genre is admittedly, 'right up my alley'. Usually I check some ratings on here before renting movies so that I avoid the flops. Thankfully, I didn't look on IMDb until AFTER I had already rented it. So when I looked at IMDb's 4.6 user rating AFTER renting it, but BEFORE watching it; my expectations were lowered even further, and I nearly put off watching it, again. Nevertheless, it was due the next day and I popped it in the DVD player when the other-half went to bed(too bad - she would have liked it). I have a good sound system and a nice TV - both made this action/western/fantasy even better.

Let's take a look at some of the films on IMDb with similar user ratings - specifically some of the worst films that I have ever seen/wasted my time and money on.

Ready to Wear(Pret-A-Porter)4.8 Actually rated higher than Jonah Hex. This was two hours I will NEVER get back. A terribly boring movie with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

King Solomon's Mines 4.6 Tied with Jonah Hex. This may be the worst movie I have ever seen. A literal walk out of the theater. And I know what you're thinking. I talked about giving movies a chance earlier, but I revisited KSM years later, and it still remains the worst film I've ever seen in my lifetime, 1 and a half times.

Toys 4.6 Enough said.

Jonah Hex' style is true to the comic book theme. The opening of the film is excellent, and gives us a good foundation for an entertaining storyline. John Malkovich is ALWAYS a good adversary/bad guy, and Josh Brolin IS Jonah Hex. Megan Foxes' role is small, and she serves every purpose, much like a smoking hot Bond girl. Her Body alone makes this film worth 4.6.

But, Jonah Hex is much more. It's interesting, it's action packed, and it's well-paced.

Now, is it believable? No. What comic book based film is? Is it Oscar worthy? No. Will it appear on any legitimate 2010 Top Ten lists? No. Jonah Hex is the pure definition of a popcorn flick. Not just one that rare movie watchers might over-rate(It's no nine or ten), and one that critics will annihilate, but one that is sure to surprise many who give it a chance. It's worth the rental - especially if you have a TV and sound system that can give you a near theater experience. I like some of the subtle touches to this movie, and Malkovich and Brolin really help the cause.

58/100

You'll like it if you liked: Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer, Brotherhood of the Wolf, and Timecop.