Jonah Hex is based on a long-standing DC comics who, after having served the Confederacy in the Civil War and suffered many personal tragedies (one of which cost him roughly half his face), rides the Old West as a bounty hunter/mercenary. He's tough. He's mean. He's really good with a gun, knife or ax. And woe be unto him who tries to get around paying Jonah Hex his fee.
With decades of material to work with--especially the most recent "Jonah Hex" series written by Jimmy Palmotti and Justin Gray--making a "Jonah Hex" movie seems like a pretty good idea.
Just not this "Jonah Hex" movie.
The film is well cast, with a suitably snarly Josh Brolin as Hex; Megan Fox brings the pretty as Hex's prostitute girlfriend, Lilah; and John Malkovich as Quentin Turnbull, a former Confederate general with a hate-on for Hex, and the feeling is mutual. (Hex betrayed Turnbull's son to the yankees for targeting civilian;, Turnbull in turn executed Hex's wife and child). The costumes and cinematography look about right, and the heavy-metal soundtrack by Marco Beltrami and Mastodon is oddly effective.
Why, then, does this whole movie seem off?
As with most bad movies, the problems begin with the screenplay, which reads like a rejected episode of the '60s TV series The Wild Wild West (itself the victim of a bad big-screen adaptation). Turnbull has faked his own death (to get Hex off of his trail) is leading a renegade army around the country, killing loads of innocent people and assembling a super-weapon designed by Eli Whitney, but never fully constructed...until now. President Ulysses S. Grant calls in Hex to hunt down Turnbull, interrupting the bounty hunter's me-time with Leila and leading eventually to a literally explosive confrontation.
Unlike his comic-book counterpart, though, this big-screen Jonah Hex has mystical powers, like the ability to bring the dead back to life briefly for conversation. He also has a penchant for gadgets, like Gatling guns mounted on his horse. (If that poor horse turns its head the wrong way. Jonah's gonna have to find a new ride.)
The plot raises a lot more questions than it answers, like...How does Turnbull know about the super-weapon? How does Grant know about Hex and his animosity toward Turnbull? How does Turnbull know about Leila? How does Turnbull's psychotic, heavily tattooed henchman (Michael Fassbender) get all the way to the Southwest, kidnap Lilah and get all the way back so quickly? (Maybe Eli Whitney also invented the airplane?) Why do Jonah and Lilah love each other? (Maybe the sex is really good?) What's up with the super-weapon's golden glowing balls? Where did Jonah Hex's mystical abilities come from?
A rewrite (or two) on the screenplay could have fixed a lot of these problems. Throw in CGI effects that would be embarrassingly bad in a SyFy Original movie and an ending so ragged and blatantly tacked on that the editors would have been tossed out of film school if they'd submitted it as a class project, though, and you've got a movie that feels a good deal more like a work print than a finished product.
the character--and the moviegoing audience--deserved better.
1 comment:
I've heard little good about this movie. I so wanted it to be a hit --both at the box office and with critics--for Josh Brolin who, despite an Oscar nod and rave critical reviews for nearly every performance, still has not attained solid leading man status.
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