Review of Jonah Hex (2010) by Adam F — 22 Sep 2014

"Jonah Hex" is so patched up and half-assed that it barely feels like a film. It's based/inspired by the character published in DC Comics, but it's about as close to the original source material as 2003's "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" was to the original Allan Moore comic. Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin, trying really hard) was a confederate soldier when his life was torn apart by Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich). After refusing to follow the crazed orders of Quentin, Hex was to be eliminated by his best friend Jeb (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who escapes the film uncredited and only appears in one scene), but Hex escaped by killing the son. Quentin didn't take too kindly to that. Out of spite, Turnbull tracked down Hex, killed his family and messed up his face. Years later, Hex believes Turnbull to be dead so he goes around making money as a bounty hunter. Little does he know that not only is Turnbull alive, but he's planning on unleashing a terrifying weapon against the United States. No, not a giant mechanical spider (I wish), a ridiculous Gatling cannon that can level cities. Oh yeah, and Megan Fox plays a gun-wielding prostitute.

This movie really is a mess. It runs 1hr 13 minutes without the credits and it still feels padded out. The story is what you would expect to see from a 42 minute episode of a sci-fi action TV show. It's pretty much only about Hex finding out that his nemesis is alive, that he's got an evil plan to kill the President of the United States and then Hex goes out to stop him. Subplots? Character development? Forget that! This is one of those movies where you know the director heard that this was a comic book movie and figured "that means my characters can be paper-thin and the fans will be happy!" because everyone here is totally flat. Jonah Hex has what most closely resembles a personality. He's got a bit of a dark sense of humour (Something this movie desperately needed more of) and goes around shooting people who disagree with him because they're all bad guys. I'm trying to think of other ways to describe him, but nope. Quentin Turnbull, he's an evil villain. How evil? Well first of all, he's a terrorist. He blows up trains, employs suicide bombers (yes, really) and has a "weapon of mass destruction". He hates America, loves killing innocent women and children, blows up schools, hospitals, churches and I'm sure you could argue that he's racist too because he was fighting for the south and I didn't see a single black guy among his cronies. I only mentioned Megan Fox's character in passing because her character contributes nothing to the movie. She's there to serve as a love interest, as a hostage and as a plot device towards the climax, but she doesn't really do anything except appear in a few random scenes that could have been cut out of the film without much loss. Same thing goes for the black armourer who provides Hex with his nonsensical weapons. He's really only in the film to informs us that Jonah Hex isn't a racist. He appears in two scenes, and in one of them he has no lines whatsoever. Going back to Lilah (Megan Fox's character), her character feels totally like a half-baked badass female sidekick. She seen several times wielding a pistol or another type of weapon and we hear her saying that she's saving her money so you assume that she's trying to get out of the hooking business. That never plays out though. You never find out what she was doing with her money and towards the end of the film, she completely disappears, never to be heard from again.

This is one of the worst edited movies I have ever seen. Characters appear and disappear between shots and the climax has to be seen to be believed. About a third or so into the film Hex gets a new pet sidekick, a dog. We get long shots where Hex is seen on horseback galloping through the wilderness with no dog, then poof it appears again in the next scene. I've already mentioned that the same applied to Lilah. It feels like the film was put together and then hacked to pieces. I picture a conversation that went something like this going on between the director and the producers:

P: "Wait a minute, this movie is only 45 minutes long!".

D: "Well yeah. Sorry but this script, I thought because it took me an hour and a half to read it while kind of dozing off that the movie would last that long".

P: "Well, we could add an animated sequence at the beginning. I have a friend that's a big fan of Jonah Hex that's done one of those motion comics we could use!".

D:"Good! but that will tag on a max of ten minutes, what next?".

P: "What about a love interest? I hear Megan Fox is free and Josh Brolin thinks she's hot so I'm sure he'll agree to shoot a couple of scenes with her.".

D: "Oh yeah, and we can add a subplot about him having magic powers and throw in a dog sidekick. If we have the credits run slowly, we can use all of that and make it an hour and 24 minutes, that'll do right?".

P:"Sounds good to me!".

The ending of this film absolutely ludicrous too. We have Turnbull approaching the capital with one of the most ill-conceived doomsday weapons ever (from the second they show you how it works you can predict how they are going to stop it) but what does the United States do to defend itself against this threat? Send a single boat, piloted by two guys to tell Turnbull to stop. Guess how well that works out. We've got this character that supplies Jonah Hex with his weapons. He's there mostly, as I said before, to show that our hero isn't a racist, but we see him and his two sons listening to the President give his speech while Turnbull advances with his doomsday cannon. It's not enough that the President might be killed, they have to remind you that the stakes are high because that character you might like and his two young kids are there too! We then have what has to be the most bizarre and confusing fight I've ever seen. Throughout the film, Jonah Hex has been having these visions of himself crawling out of the sand to battle Turnbull. It's symbolic or something because Turnbull is the one that carved-up Hex's face and ever since, he's been holding a grudge. Every time we cut to the vision, Hex loses the fight. When it comes down to the big battle at the end, we cut between two scenes: one fight set in the real world and one in the "dream" world. That's right; Hex is battling his nemesis in person and also in a symbolic vision. Have you ever heard of two battles between the same characters being cut together to make the climax of a film more exciting? It felt to me like the shots they got from the actors were so bad that they had to figure out a way to make the fight comprehensible but the sets had already been taken down and turned into scrap. Their solution was then to travel to a dusty spot and shoot the actors fighting each other, thinking it would be really clever. It's so bad you can't even imagine how confusing and amateurish it looks.

I know superhero movies are big and there are probably a lot of people out there that feel compelled to own every single superhero movie. I myself used to be one of those people. I am telling you, No! Pleading you to stay away from this one. If anyone asks, just tell them that Jonah Hex isn't technically a superhero character. I mean yeah they randomly give him a superpower for this movie (because making a western about a badass bounty hunter can't be done apparently) but this is more like a brainless version of a western spliced with the worst issues of the comic book ever written than something that warrants a spot in your collection. They don't even manage to make this a faithful adaptation of the character, it's as bad as when they made "Catwoman" without any references to Batman! Just watch the "DC Showcase Presents: Jonah Hex" and then follow it up with your favorite Clint Eastwood Western and you'll have a better time. The only good thing about this movie is that Megan Fox looks good (not that difficult since half of the characters in this film are covered with dirt) and the movie is thankfully very short. This movie is so bad though that it makes Michael Fassbender (Who appears in a short role) look like an amateur. If you have the misfortune of watching "Jonah Hex" you'll be disappointed, but you won't be angry. It's only because the film is so short and unmemorable that you will barely remember this train wreck after it's over. (On Blu-ray, February 7, 2014).