Movie Review: Jonah Hex (2010)
A film that simply feels empty and without a need to exist
Photo: Warner Bros.
Jonah Hex centers on the titular comic book Confederate-turned-bounty hunter played by Josh Brolin, a man who's watched his family burn at the hand of Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), a former Confederate army colonel-turned-terrorist. Vowing revenge on Turnbull, Hex begins working for the U.S. military, and in exchange for the capture of Turnbull he'll receive a full pardon. Of course, Hex accepts and the story doesn't get much deeper than that.
The cast includes Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Will Arnett, Michael Shannon, Michael Fassbender, Aidan Quinn, Thomas Lennon, David Patrick Kelly and Tom Wopat. For more information on this film including pictures, trailers and a detailed synopsis choose from the following menu.
Review
"Jonah Hex" is a Warner Bros. release, directed by Jimmy Hayward and is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, disturbing images and sexual content. The running time is 1 hour 30 minutes.
Maybe there was something to Jonah Hex before Warner Bros. stamped it for mass audience appeal. The flick was written by R-rated script jockeys Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor who are best known for the hard R-rated Crank franchise, but nothing too exciting really happens in this feature, which is bland at best. Chopped down to about 80 some minutes once you take front and back-end credits into account, along with a rather slipshod animated sequence at the opening in an attempt to speed the story along, there's very little left to grab hold of.
As Hex, Josh Brolin is taxed with the attempt to create a meaningful character while saddled with a face prosthetic that limits his speech to gruff mumbles and a script that doesn't do him any additional favors. I can only assume lack of money was the reason director Jimmy Hayward didn't go for a full on green screen effect such as Aaron Eckhart's make-up in The Dark Knight, but what's offered here just doesn't fit the bill.
Megan Fox adds little other than sweaty cleavage and a dirty bustier to the proceedings though I wouldn't call it her fault. Her character is suddenly introduced and just as quickly abandoned until a damsel in distress is necessary to prolong the film's finale as Turnbull has gained possession of a Civil War-style weapon of mass destruction about as ill-conceived as they come. Tension is lacking and interest wanes as this film never grabbed me by the guts and demanded I pay attention.
My personal enjoyment watching Michael Fassbender in pretty much anything can't be shared here. Playing Burke, Turnbull's oxymoronic Irish lightweight heavy, Fassbender, along with everyone else working for Turnbull, is given no room to create a character other than to stand in front of Hex long enough to die. If you're paying enough attention you'll likely notice Michael Shannon in a tiny, tiny, tiny role and Will Arnett even gets about five minutes of screen time. Wes Bentley also shows up long enough to offer the worst Southern accent I've heard in some time and, of course, I have to mention John Malkovich whose villainy is about as predictable as each of his evil one-liners.
Beyond the shallow acting and character development, CGI crows dominate the landscape whenever obvious green screen backgrounds don't. Perhaps Hayward is more at home with films such as Horton Hears a Who (his only other feature directorial outing), or the PG-13 rating caused this one to lose its bite and whimsy, or this was simply a troubled project from the start. Either way, little worked, because there was very little to work with.
It's not that Jonah Hex is incredibly bad as much as it is unnecessary and empty in its current state. Much of the film feels like videogame cut screens and the action is muted at best. You can mark down Jonah Hex as just the latest example of crummy movies setting out to fill the growing geek niche and offering little-to-nothing in its attempt.
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Good God, this movie is terrible. I generally like most movies I see, or at least give them a shot. I can usually have fun with a movie that's so bad it's good (I liked Babylon A.D. by that standard). But this one was bad.
I seriously believe that Josh Brolin should get an Oscar just for having to be in this movie and act alongside the horrible Megan Fox and disappointing John Malkovich. And I also noticed Michael Shannon's two-second role, and have to wonder why that was even there. For me, Brolin and Michael Fassbender were the only bright spots, but they couldn't do anything to save this wretch of a film.
Apparently Michael Shannon's role was to be expanded if there was going to be a sequel.
Which is pretty much the funniest thing I've ever heard.
Wow can't actually believe how right I was, and I've only seen the trailer.
I only saw the trailer and i thought it could be entertainment value but nothing more. Now it doesnt appear to be that at all.
Really looks bad.
It felt like a clumsily-edited for TV version of a darker, hard-R movie. Sad but true.
But at least it was over and out within 80 minutes. And it's so much better than if Neveldine & Taylor. Damning it with faint praise, but true.
* And it's so much better than if Neveldine & Taylor had directed it, too. Jimmy Haywood has a bit of style, but maybe I'm confusing it with the cinematography and production design.