You know, this movie has plenty of style, production value, and relevance for a comic book movie…IF IT WERE 1995. Unfortunately, for 2010, it is cheesy, and not in the ironic way, full of bad one-liners and a completely uninteresting script. Does anyone even know who Jonah Hex is? What could the percentage be of comic book nerds that not only know this character, but are also big fans champing at the bit for a movie version?
You know, this movie has plenty of style, production value, and relevance for a comic book movie…IF IT WERE 1995. Unfortunately, for 2010, it is cheesy, and not in the ironic way, full of bad one-liners and a completely uninteresting script. Does anyone even know who Jonah Hex is? What could the percentage be of comic book nerds that not only know this character, but are also big fans champing at the bit for a movie version? I don’t know, seems like a niche market to me. But not as niche as the crappy movie market is these days.
So, Jonah Hex is this confederate soldier that decides he doesn’t like what he sees in the war anymore, but his fellow soldiers don’t stop when he protests, so he shoots one of them. Turns out that was Turnbull’s (John Malkovich) son. Eventually Turnbull catches up with Hex and kills his wife and son and brands his face. Some indians find him and nurse him back to health from death’s doorstep. Because he was so close to dying, he returns with the ability to bring the dead back to life and have chats with them. But if they stay undead for too long they burst into flames. This, by the way, is the only cool thing about this movie.
Is this already too much? Yeah, this was all explained in narration by Jonah Hex, played by Josh Brolin, who is fine here, but must have been under the impression that this was going to be his big entry into comic book movie money. Poor disillusioned bastard. After coming off of an Oscar film, No Country For Old Men, this may come as quite the shock.
So, Turnbull, thought to be dead, pops up and starts causing trouble. He steals some plans from the government for a big war machine, which turns out to be a REALLY big cannon with like, six barrels. It shoots cannon balls and then a weird gold orb to make a REALLY big explosion. The President of the U.S. (Aiden Quinn?!) tells the U.S. Marshall (Will Arnett?!) that only Jonah Hex can stop Turnbull. Yes, but who in the name of all that is Holy will STOP THIS MOVIE?!
Other than Brolin, the acting is adequate at best. The effects are only ok, the story is, well, not the worst, but it is executed in a way that makes it the worst. You’d think Megan Fox would be at least some eye candy, but she’s only in the movie for about 10 minutes, and she’s barely acceptable in that time. Tell me that girl ain’t gonna have a hard time finding a decent gig, now.
This thing is edited like a kid with ADD locked himself in the editing room, and the audience responded like a room full of narcoleptics. I was hoping it would at least be so bad it was funny, but alas, NOT FUNNY. This was co-written by Neveldine and Taylor, who wrote and directed Crank 2, which I loved. But their style just didn’t seem to fit this movie. Jonah Hex was directed by Jimmy Hayward, who previously directed Horton Hears A Who, and…uuuh…NOTHING ELSE. Before that, he was a Pixar animator. Dude, go back to Pixar. Or take some directing classes. I’m sorry, man, but this thing was bad. Just bad.
You don’t even need to see this on DVD. Seriously.
~ Neil T. Weakley, your average movie-goer, pushing you out of the way of this speeding train (wreck) of a movie.
