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 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

Your typical action film based on a comic, but with some surprising elements. It had some macabre features (where jonah could talk to the dead and he obtained quick reflexes after a near death experience) and though megan fox had a mediocre roll she had her moments where her acting overdid her role in Transformers. (not quite a accomplishment, but still...)

If you haven't read the comic and maybe not biased by expectations, you most likely like this one. It has all the elements for a good action film and the his personal crusade with his nemesis general turnbull makes it worthwhile to watch.

IMDb rates it with a poor 4,6 I rate it with a 6,5 (G.O.O.S.) ( for the original effects and surprisingly OK acting from megan fox and entertaining storyline)

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 a fan of comics and westerns so even though I knew of Jonah Hex in name only this was something I knew I could probably at least sit through. I've seen some reviews and they seem a little harsh. It wasn't anything special but it moved a long fairly quickly and I wasn't bored for what that's worth.

I agree with others that Brolin was a good choice for Hex. I was glad to see Malkovich there but he seemed a tad underwhelming. I think he's a great actor so I trust he nailed the character though. Will Arnett stuck out like a sore thumb in the small number of scenes he was in. He's a goofy, funny guy I just don't really want to see him in a serious role. You almost can't tell if he's for real or being sarcastically serious. Megan Fox is Megan Fox. Why people are complaining so much about her acting I have no idea. She's there for sex appeal. No one thinks she's the next coming of Meryl Streep or something.

The movie looked a little too synthetic for me especially some of the "ultimate weapon" stuff. It looked a little too clean for a western too. I don't know why some movies like There Will Be Blood can look so authentic and suck you in to the setting but others like this just look too fake.

I figured there would be some fantastic elements involved even though it was grounded in real life, just because of the comic influence. That might have prepared me a little more for the stuff others might have found to be out of place. In fairness movies are a little bit like watching a sporting event for the first time. If you don't know the rules or know what to expect you're likely to not enjoy it much. After the first 5 minutes or so I figured as much to not be jarred by some of the more out of place plot elements, so all in all I thought it was a short, somewhat entertaining movie. Glad it wasn't much longer though.