Review of Jonah Hex (2010) by James R — 29 Jun 2011

Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) is a disfigured bounty hunter. He became that way because Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) killed Jonah's family and burnt his face. Jonah then dedicates his life to getting revenge on Turnbull, who apparently dies in a fire, leaving a hate filled Jonah to enact his heart full of vengence on anyone who pays him, or tries to kill him. Years later, the President hires Jonah to take down Turnbull, who is alive and planning to kill countless lives during Independance Day.

Josh Brolin plays the lead role, and gives of the best performance of the film. He really proves his worth as the tortured soul and as the merciless bounty hunter. If this Brolin character was in No Country For Old Men, then he wouldn't have had to worry about Anton Chigurh as much. Jonah has supernatural powers to talk to the dead, which was not in the comics btw, just tacked on here, and it does feel tacked on as the powers aren't really used much in the film, making their original addition feel wasted and stupid. Also, the origins of them are pretty vague. Plus, was it me or did the reanimated corpses voice change slightly? Also, Jonah's facial scarring was distractingly bad.

Megan Fox is a prostitute, no change there. Oh sorry, PLAYS a prostitute. Anyway, she's still there purely to bait horny teenage boys to shelling out money to watch this movie (really moved on from Transformers then), and she still proves that she's not much of an actress, what with her barely acting all throughout and giving a half-assed attempt to sound southern. Also, the set up for the relationship between Brolin and Fox feels tacked on just for the hell of it. Also, it astounds me how the character manages to change from slightly badass to defenseless female stereotype not once, but twice.

John Malkovich really could've played the role of the villian better than he did, better than a generic Grade D villian complete with his Grade G motive for being the villian. One thing that really distracted me about Malkovich was his wig, it just looked unnatural, and he seemed to be phoning his accent in there. Lance Reddick and Jeffrey Dean Morgan really acted well in the short time their characters were on screen, would've taken more of them over Megan Fox.

Michael Fassbender acts in his first comic book role in this film (his second is this years Young Magneto), playing the occasionally over the top, oirish lad by the name of Burke. He's also one of the few actors who give an above average performance in this film.

The film has a number of times where it tries it's hand at comedy, and let me just say, if it's not from Josh Brolin's mouth, it doesn't work. I felt they missed an opportunity though. When Will Arnett's character says "President thinks your special, magic even", they should've had him get up and shout "That's nothing, THIS is REAL magic!" and throw his arms up and have pennies rain down. (If you don't get that last line, it's an Arrested Development joke. Hey, it was better than this bloody film).

There are a number of scenes in this film which just feel pointless, like Jonah burping up dust and then a crow when he was healing. Just one big what was the fucking point? Also, the native american tribe only appeared twice, to heal drag Jonah from near-death, heal the poor guy and then we never see them again, so, wasted. And that random moment where the knocked out guy sets fire to that tent where the people were wrestling. Point? None.

It really astounds me how many actors in this film cannot put on an accent to save their lives. Megan Fox speaks quiet with her bad accent and Josh Brolin is barely understandable through his accent, so when the two share a scene together, I could not hear what bad dialogue they were spouting.

The shoot outs are really nothing special here. I'll be honest, I felt the action seemed a bit subdued, and to be honest, I felt the actions scenes were quite short in length. I'm not asking for a Transformers-esque hour long action scene, but something a bit longer, and more memorable.

Jonah Hex is a film that really does not have much to it. Granted, it's not meant to be an oscar nominee or a film that makes you think, it's meant to be a fun actioner, but there really isn't much to the action, and it falls short on the fun part.

I leave this review with one last thought: Why did so many people have moustaches?