Jonah Hex [Blu-ray]

JONAH HEXED BY HOLLYWOOD HUBRIS
To begin, please understand two things about me:

1: I Love Westerns.
2: I`ve been a fan of the character 'Jonah Hex' for over 30 years.

In the comics, Jonah Hex caught my interest because of the gritty, hard-edged stories that featured a tough ex-Confederate soldier turned hard-case Bounty Hunter roaming the old West. I won`t belabor the details, but if you want a good idea of the tone of Jonah Hex; most fans liken Clint Eastwood`s "The Outlaw Josie Wales" to practically be a Jonah Hex movie. Jonah Hex would indeed ask the immortal question "You Gonna Pull Those Pistols, Or Whistle Dixie?"

The movie "Jonah Hex", while somewhat capturing the charaacter`s 'Attitude', unfortunately sees fit to muck it up with supernatural underpinnings and the sort of gimmickry that James West would laugh at ( ...I mean...c`mon...twin Gatling Guns mounted on a saddle? ...a gun that shoots lit sticks of dynamite ?? )

Jonah Hex --the character -- was NEVER...

Put a hex on it
I like steampunk. I like Weird West. I like comic book adaptations. I like movies that bust out of the usual genre cliches.

But it's not an unconditional love -- the loathing I have for "Jonah Hex" proves it. This movie is a bit like the evil love child of "Wild Wild West" and "Van Helsing," with all the bloodcurdling stupidity of the former and the flashy steampunky trappings of the latter. Josh Brolin does his best to salvage this messy undercooked stew of cliches, but honestly... there's no saving this movie.

Jonah Hex (Brolin) was a Confederate soldier who turned against his commander Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), and Turnbull got his revenge by killing Hex's family, scarring his face and leaving him for dead on a cross. Of course he doesn't die, but becomes a bounty hunter who can communicate with the dead just by touching them. All this is crammed in the first three minutes.

Then the president recruits him to hunt down Turnbull, who is...

If The Wild Wild West and Van Helsing had a love child, this would be it
I knew before sitting down in the theater today that this movie is getting nothing but trashed all over the place by critics, but I always go in with an open mind and usually end up disagreeing with them. Well, that's not the case here. First off, the movie is only 72 minutes long if you take away the end credits. They spent no time developing any of the characters, so I never really cared about any of them. Maybe a director's cut will be released on DVD, because this movie really needed another 30 minutes.

Josh Brolin is a fine actor and he is the best thing about the movie, but even he seems a little bored with the whole thing at times. He does get some good one-liners along the way. John Malkovich is just here for a paycheck. Talk about a villain that will put you to sleep. His whole evil plan has been done a million times before. We all know Megan Fox looks great, but can she act? The answer is still no. She's not too bad here, especially when compared with her previous...

Click to Editorial Reviews