Previews, reviews and spoilers

Yeah, double ouch.

http://www.fangoria.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1203:jonah-hex-film-review&catid=50:movies-tv&Itemid=181

“JONAH HEX” (Film Review)

Don’t believe all those reports you may have heard that JONAH HEX runs only 82 minutes. This reviewer clocked it at just 79, and that includes eight minutes of end credits.

Consider that a moment: The actual movie only runs nine times longer than it takes to list the people who worked on it. Rarely has there seemed a greater disconnect between the amount of people, money and effort expended on a film and the product that resulted. JONAH HEX has the look and sound of an epic, but it sure doesn’t play like one. It’s less a feature than a 79-minute studio compromise, bearing the overwhelming feel of something pushed and pulled and cut and pasted by multiple hands with opposing goals, and then tossed out to theaters in as short a form as possible, the better to get more shows per day during the opening weekend before word of mouth gets around.

Based—very loosely, it’s been said by those in the know—on the DC/Vertigo comic, JONAH HEX sees Josh Brolin fighting valiantly but vainly to lend gravitas to the movie in the title role. He’s a Civil War veteran turned bounty hunter who bears severe physical and psychological scars from a confrontation with an evil former Confederate colonel named Quentin Turnbull (played with an evident lack of interest by John Malkovich). To avenge his son’s death at Jonah’s hands, Turnbull forced Jonah to watch as he burned down Jonah’s house with his wife and son inside, then applied a branding iron to his face before almost killing him. The near-death experience has left Jonah with the ability to communicate with the deceased (though the rules, like much else in the movie, aren’t entirely clear) along with melted flesh and a hole in his cheek, occasioning a macabre sight gag that was done better in PAN’S LABYRINTH.

Now a tortured loner, Jonah rids the West of varmints for money, armed with an assortment of over-the-top weapons that he only seems to use once each (though in the case of the saddle-mounted Gatling guns, one imagines his horse finds that a relief). But when Turnbull, whom Jonah has thought died in another fire, turns out to be very much alive and blowing up trains and such to steal the parts needed to create a “superweapon,” Jonah is charged with stopping him by President Ulysses S. Grant himself, played briefly by Aidan Quinn. There are, in fact, a number of characters briefly played in JONAH HEX by actors who usually command more screen time; no doubt there’s more footage on the cutting-room floor of such co-stars as Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, Michael Shannon, Wes Bentley, FRINGE’s Lance Reddick and an uncredited Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Meanwhile, Jonah’s love interest, tough-hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold Lilah, is played by a quite out-of-place Megan Fox, whose part also appears to have been reduced, but not enough.

JONAH HEX was scripted and originally set to be directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the maniacs behind the CRANK movies, who departed the project over creative differences and whose berserk stylings might have at least given the incoherent proceedings a nutty charge. Their replacement at the helm was Jimmy Hayward, a former Pixar animator making his live-action feature debut (coincidentally opening the same day as TOY STORY 3, which finds LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE scripter Michael Arndt making the reverse trip far more successfully). Hayward in turn was reportedly supplanted in postproduction by I AM LEGEND director Francis Lawrence, who oversaw reshoots and other doctoring. But the Humpty Dumpty of a movie that has resulted seems to have been put back together without all the necessary pieces; the story doesn’t flow, people and ideas appear and disappear willy-nilly and the big action scenes are perfunctory and undercooked.

Along the way, a few promising themes get lost. There’s an element of Native American mysticism underpinning Jonah and his preternatural powers, but it’s not explored in enough depth that moments like his tranced-out vomiting up of a live crow result in anything other than unintended snickers. And while Turnbull’s activities, and his weapon of mass destruction, are clearly meant to echo current events (he’s even referred to as a “terrorist”), the metaphor never rises above halfhearted. It’s all very visually polished (cinematographer Mitchell Amundsen is one of the few people involved who can walk away from this mess with his head held high), but by the time the hero and villain’s final confrontation is being pointlessly punctuated by flashbacks to their earlier confrontation, even these 71 minutes have started to feel very, very long.

1/4 skulls

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12-6-motion-captured/posts/the-m-c-review-jonah-hex


Josh Brolin and Megan Fox fall flat in embarrassing 'Jonah Hex'
Posted on Thursday, Jun 17, 2010 By Drew McWeeny

The M/C Review: 'Jonah Hex' is a total ambush

Just one of the many moments that aim for 'cool' but land on 'ridiculous' in the strange misfire 'Jonah Hex,' opening the theaters today.
Credit: Warner Bros.

How much can you really say about a film like "Jonah Hex"?

"Jonah Hex" is a total failure as a movie. It seems to have all of the ingredients that would be in a good film... things like costumes and actors and sets and color and sound and scenes and dialogue... but every single one of those things lays there separately, never coming together into a coherent whole. It is inert as a movie from the beginning to the end. It features terrible performances, a script that doesn't manage even the most basic tasks of storytelling, and it is directed with a near-complete lack of understanding for how a scene works. It is about 80 minutes long, and it feels like four hours. It's a collection of random incident, and completely tone deaf.

And beyond that... what is there to say?

I visited the set for the film. I went to the press conference with the filmmakers. I interviewed Josh Brolin. I can tell that Brolin, at the very least, was sincere in his desire to make an unconventional and entertaining film, and that he really wanted to figure out how to make Hex into an iconic Western character. For Jimmy Hayward, this was an important film because he was moving from animation into live-action, and based on the evidence of this, I'm not sure I believe he's got the skill set for live-action. It's not enough just to stage a scene on a set and capture it on camera. Hayward's movie never feels like it's alive. There's no sense from moment to moment that what you're watching is all connected. You can practically see the Teamsters standing around off-camera, waiting for the take to be over. It's perfunctory.

The best example of this is John Malkovich, who offers absolutely nothing in his role as Colonel The Bad Guy. I know he's got a name, but it might as well just be "The Bad Guy," because there's nothing about his performance aside from a fake nose that is memorable. He is hopelessly outclassed by Michael Fassbender, who plays his second-in-command, and that's because Fassbender seems like he really wants to make a mark as a villain. He's basically acting in a totally different movie than everyone else, and a much better movie, and it's a shame the entire movie couldn't strike the same tone that Fassbender's peformance does. Seeing someone as good as Malkovich just fold up and quit is dispiriting, but at least watching this film gives me hope that Fassbender will make a great Magneto in "X-Men: First Class."

The much-discussed score by Mastadon is poorly used and doesn't really fit the film. I'd have to listen to it separately to be able to fairly discuss it as a piece of music, but as a score? It doesn't work. It's another tonal issue. There is a version of "Jonah Hex" where that sort of score might work, but this is not that version. I'm not sure any score could have really helped the film, but it's certainly not this one that it needs.

Josh Brolin is hampered by the physical requirements of the scar he wears as Jonah Hex, and I like what he had to say about the make-up giving him the right edge to play the curmudgeonly side of Jonah. It's just not something I see onscreen. It's great in theory, but in practice, Brolin just seems uncomfortable as he mumbles and drools his lines. Megan Fox, who I don't hate in theory, is given nothing to do. I'm sure you'll read critics unload on her, but it's ridiculous to criticize her performance, since there's nothing there on the page. She's a hooker and she likes Jonah Hex. That's it. No one's written with any more depth than that, so she's not the only one who looks stranded here. You'll see familiar faces like Will Arnett and Michael Shannon flash by, suggesting just how much work has been done on this film and how much recutting and reshooting happened. You'll see the President of the United States offer Jonah this non-existent job of "Sheriff Of America." You'll see magic cannonballs that do... magic stuff. You'll see Jonah talk to dead people for no particular reason. You'll see a fight sequence cut so incomprehensibly that I'm not exactly sure what I watched for the last ten minutes of the film.

Of course, all of that assumes you'll actually see "Jonah Hex," and I'm hoping that's not the case. Don't waste your time. It's a bad summer, but this pushes "bad" even further than what we've already seen this year. It's not a fun 80 minutes you can laugh at, either. It's just a drag, a big pile of failed ambition, and I suspect this is the last time we'll see Warner Bros. try to foist this particular character on the mainstream. It really just boils down to two words with this one, two sad, undeniable words. Yes, it's true... "Jonah" sux.

http://www.sfexaminer.com/lifestyle/Jonah-Hex-forgets-the-suspense-96575049.html

‘Jonah Hex’ forgets the suspense
By: Rossiter Drake

June 18, 2010
Josh Brolin does a nice job as the title character, yet “Jonah Hex,” based on the comics character, falls short. (Frank Masi)

SAN FRANCISCO — Terse of speech and leathery of scowl, Josh Brolin seems a natural fit as a whiskey-soaked Wild West gunslinger in the unforgiving tradition of Jonah Hex, an ex-Confederate soldier out to avenge the murder of his wife and child. But he, like Hex, deserves a sturdier vehicle than this.

Though not among the company's most iconic heroes, Hex has been an on-again, off-again member of the DC Comics universe for nearly four decades. His reward is roughly 80 minutes of screen time in which we learn the origin of his hideous scars and notoriously quick trigger finger.

Accused of betraying his fellow Rebels when he refuses to torch hospitals and churches, Hex is forced to watch as deranged General Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) sets his family ablaze.

Branded with the mark of a deserter, he’s abandoned to die, but American Indians revive him, leaving him trapped — not unlike Keith Richards — between life and the hereafter.

There is, however, an upside to this. Hex can communicate with the dead, and he uses his afterlife connections to track Turnbull and his homicidal, tattoo-covered henchman (Michael Fassbender) to the nation’s capital, where they plan to detonate a silly-looking doomsday device.

Intones the president (Aidan Quinn) gravely: “The very fate of the nation may rest on the shoulders of Jonah Hex!”

Brolin is the right man to play Hex, who drinks his way from one town to the next, always ready for a fight. The problem isn’t his performance, which is spot-on, or even his lively supporting cast, including Fassbender and a feisty Megan Fox. (Malkovich, who often cloaks his malevolence behind a veneer of casual indifference, merely seems bored.)

What handicaps the otherwise unsinkable Hex is the irritating weightlessness of his story, which unfolds haphazardly and devoid of suspense. Neither director Jimmy Hayward nor screenwriters Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor seem seriously interested in any of the characters. Hex himself is a surly thug, long on snappy one-liners but short on insight; his enemies are similarly impenetrable. They exist only to do what he won’t — that is, die.

Besides his talent for post-mortem conversation, Hex’s only superpower is his ability to stay alive — riddled with bullets, his face and chest a battered testament to hard living, he boasts (albeit with a sort of weary resignation) that he can’t be killed.

The filmmakers take their best shot, but even as our hero limps defiantly into the sunset, one can’t help wondering if we’ve really seen the last of him.


MOVIE REVIEW
Jonah Hex
Two stars

Starring Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett
Written by Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor
Directed by Jimmy Hayward
Rated PG-13
Running time 1 hour 25 minutes

http://news.bostonherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/view/20100618jonah_hex/srvc=home&position=also

‘Jonah’ is a whale of a failure
James Verniere By James Verniere
Friday, June 18, 2010 - Updated 6h ago

JONAH HEX: D

Are you ready to go back to “The Wild Wild West”?

A ludicrous ripoff of the Clint Eastwood character from the iconic western “The Outlaw Josey Wales” (1976), “Jonah Hex” lands with a depressing thud at the box office today.

It’s the latest in a long, stinking line of graphic-novels adapted to the screen in the wake of the huge, surprise success of Zack Snyder’s far superior 2006 effort “300.”

D.C.-based “Hex” stars a game, occasionally funny Josh Brolin (“No Country for Old Men”) as a Civil War veteran-turned-bounty hunter whose wife and son were burned alive by the monstrous Confederate Gen. Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich, think demonic Willie Nelson). In these scenes, Jonah is also branded in the face, leaving him with his signature weird, disfiguring cheek scar, something I grew tired of looking at. He also inexplicably gains the ability to talk to “dead folks.”

Recently-fired-from-“Transformers 3” Megan Fox appears for about 20 minutes of total screen time, her waist tightly cinched by a corset, as Lilah, a prostitute. Lilah doesn’t “play house” or deliver lines credibly, but she likes Jonah.

It all begins muy “Josey Wales”-like when Josey, I mean Jonah, seemingly outnumbered by a dozen or more of the filthiest-looking gunmen West of “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” (1971), lets loose on them with twin Gatling guns mounted on his horse.

On the eve of the first U.S. Centennial, Turnbull, who has been nicknamed “teroriste” by his “Mexican slaves,” has been burning churches and hospitals. He plans to use a steampunk-inspired weapon of mass destruction invented by Eli Whitney to destroy Washington. President Ulysses S. Grant (Aidan Quinn, no doubt wishing himself into the cornfield) enlists Hex’s aid.

Scripted by Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor and William Farmer and directed by Jimmy Hayward (“Horton Hears a Who!”), “Jonah Hex” provides lots of big explosions and gunfire, a crow popping out of Hex’s mouth, a tattooed Celtic sub-villain (Michael Fassbender of “Inglourious Basterds” goes to waste), banjo music, a 19th century ultimate fighting pit and Will Arnett.

In an apparent effort to cut its losses, Warner Bros. trimmed the film for a PG-13 rating, leaving them with barely 80 minutes of choppily edited, mangled, barely coherent, semimeaningless movie-ette. Literally blink and you will miss Michael Shannon (“Revolutionary Road”) as Doc Cross Williams. I guess I blinked. Among Hex’s witticisms is the expression, “Dirt likes dead.” It should like this movie just swell.

http://www.punchdrunkcritics.com/2010/06/jonah-hex.html

Jonah Hex
Posted by Travis Hopson on Thursday, June 17, 2010 / Labels: DC, jonah hex, josh brolin, Megan Fox, Warner Bros.

There ya go, DC! That's the way to keep up with your crosstown rivals over at Marvel Studios. Not that I expected Jonah Hex to be Iron Man, but maybe Punisher Warzone? Can we get that at least? No? Then why even bother? This should've been left in the pages of DC's ultra violent comic series, and spared us the misfortune of having to see so many talented people waste away in this wild misfire.

Josh Brolin stars as the grunting, John Wayne-esque anti hero. We meet him early on as a soldier in the Civil War. Hex makes it pretty clear that he doesn't really care about any of the politics involved, but be that as it may he still fought for South. At some point he turns on his commanding officer, Quinton Turnbull(John Malkovich, chewing the scenery), for trying to kill a bunch of innocents. In the process, Turnbull's son(Jeffrey Dean Morgan!!) is killed. Quinton gets revenge by killing Hex's family and branding the hell out of his face. Hex walks the earth looking like somebody played a game of Operation with his mug.

Now Hex is basically a bounty hunter for hire. He's a lot like the A-Team in a sense. He's the last resort, specializing in taking on jobs with the longest of odds. He's not nearly as chatty or jokey. Hex lets his guns speak for him. Against his better wishes, Hex is compelled by the US government(led by an out of place Will Arnett) to stop Turnbull's latest scheme. He plans to blow up Washington DC using what appear to be dragonballs. I'm not kidding. I think those were dragonballs. I saw Dragon Ball: Evolution and those were definitely dragonballs. Cool. Two birds with one stone. Hex gets his revenge on Turnbull and saves the nation in the process.

Don't be deceived, in action the plot isn't nearly as identifiable as I just made it. It took a full night's sleep and a hearty breakfast to get it all sorted out in my head. At times I think screenwriters(and I use that term loosely) Neveldine and Taylor decided that it was more fun to just eff with our heads and throw every single random concept they could think of into the pot whether it makes sense or not. Hex has the never before seen ability to literally talk to the dead, which is pretty much how he figures everything out. We're constantly hurled into some spirit world, where Hex and Turnbull seem to be fighting eachother, but since it's never explained I'm just spitballin' on that one. I think it has something to do with Native Americans, a fact which should have them protesting outside Warner Brothers studios instead of Redskins Stadium.

Josh Brolin is given little to make Hex a character worth giving a crap about. I don't blame him for the misery that is this film. Nor do I blame John Malkovich, who is always entertaining in movies he knows are awful. If we're asking ourselves "Why the heck is Makovich in this?", you can see it in his eyes that he's asking himself the same question. Megan Fox shows up for a hot second as a whore who has a soft spot for dudes with big chunks of their face missing. The most memorable thing about her is that I think somebody airbrushed her face. She's so glossy and shiny I thought I had accidentally stepped into Mannequin 3. That's still a damn sight better than poor Michael Fassbender. So good in so many movies over the last couple of years including Inglourious Basterds and Fish Tank, and now he's reduced to playing some knife wielding looney henchman. It's not just a step down, he skateboarded down the handrail. I'm convinced Jeffrey Dean Morgan was just fulfilling some WB contract they've been lording over his head.

It wouldn't be so bad if there was any action to speak of. This being a Western based off of a comic book, the last thing in the world it should be is boring. Yet I can't think of a single sequence worth mentioning. No wait, that's not true. The finale between Hex and Turnbull is memorable in that I have absolutely no clue what happened. There was an explosion I think. There were lots of explosions, though. Even in places that didn't have a lick of dynamite, stuff kept blowing up.

At roughly 80 minutes plus credits, Jonah Hex is mercifully short. It'll probably take you longer to stand in line at the concession stand behind the smarter folks who went to see Toy Story 3. Don't be that guy. If this is the level of film DC is going to be putting out while we all wait for the next Batman, Marvel has nothing to worry about.

http://whysoblu.com/?p=8984

Jonah Hex Gets Ugly in Ghost Rider 2
June 18th, 2010 by Brian White

I first became interested in Jonah Hex last summer after seeing a sneak peak of several scenes at Warner Brothers’ Comic-Con panel (see here). I have to admit; I have never read a single page of the DC Comics’ title. So I guess you can say that I am a Jonah Hex virgin. Sometimes that’s a good thing, right? Anyway, I’m a big Josh Brolin fan from back in the days, but what really sold me on this movie, much to my astonishment, was the sultry Megan Fox. No it was not her acting abilities, or lack thereof depending upon who you talk to, but I was just simply mesmerized by how small her waist appears in that tightly drawn corset she adorns. Wow! Is that even possible? Plus the fact that she was sitting right there in front of me didn’t help matters either.

The Jimmy Hayward directed film stars Josh Brolin as the title character, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender and of course, the incredibly gorgeous, but very demanding and high maintenance (but most people still love her), Megan Fox. The screenplay was penned by the duo of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank and Gamer), but the film’s production was momentarily halted over a game of musical chairs when trying to court a director. Neveldine and Taylor were originally set to direct, but after experiencing creative differences with the studio they stepped down and were eventually replaced by Hayward after an exhaustive two-month search.

As I stated before, having never seen a single Jonah Hex comic book frame in my life, I knew not what to expect from this film other than what I saw in trailers and in the 2009 Comic-Con footage. However, if Robert Rodriguez taught me one thing, it’s that you can’t judge a movie by its trailer. So anyway, the story of Jonah Hex goes a little something like this y’all. Jonah Hex obviously has a scarred life, no pun intended. He supposedly is half dead and half alive. Yeah, just try and figure that one out without seeing the film. I double dog dare you! Anyway, things change for Jonah when the US Military offers him pardon for all his arrests in exchange for doing one small favor for them. Sounds like a no brainer, huh? Well, Hex agrees to track and bring down the renegade terrorist known as Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich), who just so happens to be Jonah’s oldest enemy. What a coincidence, huh? And so as you can imagine, the forces of good and evil duke it out for a foolhardy 74 minutes in one hell of an absurd, messed up, mythical western screenplay. And these ladies and gentlemen… are 74 minutes I can never get back in life.

The movie was such a mess I don’t even know where to begin. Let me put it this way. If I had to imagine what a sequel to Ghost Rider might be like, then Jonah Hex is the winner… winner… chicken dinner. Everything about it is just atrocious. It’s a shame to see such an iconic comic book hero inserted into one bungled production. And even worse… two great actors were wasted here… Brolin and Malkvoich. I suppose we all have are duds… Halle Berry had her Catwoman, Eric Bana had Hulk and now Brolin has Jonah Hex. Yes, it was that bad. From the extremely hard to hear dialog to the obnoxious guitars, 74 minutes never felt so long. The weather is supposed to be gorgeous this weekend, at least where I live, so I can’t stress this enough. Skip Jonah Hex. There’s a reason why this Warner Brothers film took so long to come out. I question whether or not they should have just released it straight to video (it may have yielded a larger profit) or shelved it completely. When looking back on 2010, I think Ghost Rider 2… oops… I mean Jonah Hex will be among my biggest disappointments. Not even Megan Fox’s sweaty body could save this one. Space cowboy out…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/17/AR2010061705497.html

'Jonah Hex' with Josh Brolin: Not much more than an ugly face
THE VILLAIN, AGAIN: Turnball (John Malkovich, left, with Wes Bentley) wants to avenge his son's death in "Jonah Hex."

By Michael O'Sullivan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 18, 2010

"Jonah Hex" may not be the longest 81 minutes you ever spend, but it might well be the most tedious. Inspired by the comic-book cowboy character of the same name -- a scar-faced Civil War-era bounty hunter who can commune with the dead, and who seems impervious to bullets himself -- the movie plods forward, one leaden step at a time, in single-minded pursuit of a goal.

No, not brains, as in some zombie movies.

There's precious little of that commodity here, under the serviceable but uninspired direction of Jimmy Hayward, making his live-action debut after "Horton Hears a Who." Instead, Hex (Josh Brolin) is driven by revenge. Revenge for his slain wife and child, who were murdered by a demented Confederate officer named Turnbull (John Malkovich, in full snake mode). In a prologue, we learn that they were killed as punishment for the death of Turnbull's son (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) at Hex's hands.

Will Hex catch Turnbull? And will he be able to stop him in his fiendish plan to attack Washington with a secret, and wildly implausible, super-weapon?

Who cares.

There are diversions along the way. Megan Fox is one. As the prostitute Lilah and Hex's love interest, Fox, the buxom hottie of "Transformers" fame, will appeal to the same lad-mag crowd that "Jonah Hex's" crunching hard-rock score does.

Michael Fassbender ("Inglourious Basterds") makes an interesting-enough villain as Turnbull's tattooed Irish henchman, Burke. Though, truth be told, his fights with Hex only serve to prolong the story unnecessarily.

As for the title character, Brolin has a suitably embittered, hard-boiled presence. Most of his acting, however, is done by his facial prosthesis, a gruesome-looking hole in his right cheek, courtesy of Turnbull, that has left him with a mouth that doesn't quite work. No matter. There's nothing of particular importance in the dialogue, which largely consists of such schoolyard taunts as "Is that all you've got?"

Of course there's plenty of shooting, if you like that sort of thing, including from Hex's horse-mounted, twin Gatling guns, which are kind of cool. But the way Hex can resurrect a corpse, simply by touching it, to perform a bit of postmortem interrogation, is the film's most original touch.

Would that he could accomplish that same miracle with the film. Like Hex himself, the movie may not exactly be dead, but it sure as heck ain't living.

Jonah Hex

* 1/2

(81 minutes, at area theaters) is rated PG-13 for frequent violence and brief sensuality.

http://jam.canoe.ca/Movies/Reviews/J/Jonah_Hex/2010/06/17/14425206.html

‘Jonah Hex’ script a mess
By KEVIN WILLIAMSON, QMI Agency

Megan Fox stars as Lilah in Warner Bros. Pictures' and Legendary Pictures' action adventure Jonah Hex.

As weird and mangled as its anti-hero's grimace, Jonah Hex is what happens when the writers of Crank meet the director of Horton Hears a Who. Ask yourself: Would Lady and the Tramp have been better if directed by Sergio Leone? Would Lonesome Dove have been improved if penned by Dr. Seuss? And why are the scribes of Crank (and Gamer) still working?

Questions that, had they been asked while the Hex script was being hammered out, might have spared all of us -- filmmakers and audiences alike -- from the bombastic, baffling, frenetic yet wooden result. How did it all go so wrong? How it is possible for any movie to seemingly borrow from Unforgiven, Wild Wild West and TV's Pushing Daisies -- all at the same time?

While the unfortunate prime culprit must be director Jimmy Hayward, it's undoubtedly unfair to blame a fiasco of this scope on a single individual. After all, there's the issue of whether or not Hex, the long-running, oft-cancelled DC Comics western outlaw, should have even received the big-screen treatment. Is Hollywood so starved for ideas it has to turn to failed comics for source material? And yes, I'm asking rhetorically.

It's a shame, certainly, for its star Josh Brolin, who is enjoyably grizzled as Hex, a ruthless bounty hunter still haunted by scars -- both internal and external -- left from the American Civil War. Not just because his performance is worthwhile, but because he's managed to assemble one of the most eclectic ensembles ever gathered in the name of summertime blockbusterdom.

Don't believe me? In addition to John Malkovich and Michael Fassbender as Hex's chief antagonists, the cast includes Will Arnett, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Aidan Quinn and Michael Shannon; even the stray dog Hex befriends has charisma. But the truncated running time -- less than an hour and a half -- leaves little opportunity for anyone to register. Shannon -- one of the most electrifying character actors working today -- appears so fleetingly, his own mother might blink and miss him.

Focus instead remains fixed squarely on Hex, who receives a chance for revenge and redemption when he learns the man who slaughtered his family, Confederate colonel Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich ... or is it Willie Nelson playing Malkovich?), isn't dead, as he had believed. Instead Turnbull has become one of the fledging nation's most treacherous enemies -- a homegrown terrorist mastermind, complete with a militia.

Further muddying matters are Hex's largely unexplained supernatural powers -- he has the ability to communicate with the dead, bringing corpses back to lurching life -- and Turnball's acquisition of a "super weapon" (think steampunk nukes) that can level entire cities.

Not surprisingly, the movie's tone is similarly conflicted, veering from comedy to drama to romance, as we're introduced to Hex's love interest Lilah (Megan Fox), a hooker with -- wait for it -- a heart of gold. Fox is adequately smouldering in the role, even if it's her corset that does most of the work. It's never clear why she's attracted to Hex or why he refuses to settle down with her, aside from his observation that everyone close to him ends up dying. And it's this lack of character development that makes it so difficult to care about anyone on-screen (well, aside from the dog).

By the grinding climax, the film is smash-cutting between a showdown on a ship, and Brolin and Malkovich brawling in some kind of red clay under-verse, intended, I think, to represent the nether world between this life and the next. Whatever. All I know is, the end couldn't come fast enough.

(This film is rated 14A)

http://www.torontosun.com/entertainment/movies/2010/06/17/14425286.html


Entertainment Movies
‘Jonah Hex’ script a mess

By KEVIN WILLIAMSON, QMI Agency

Last Updated: June 18, 2010 2:00am

<br>Jonah Hex <br>Stars: Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender <br>Directed by: Jimmy Hayward <br>Running time: 1 hour, 21 min.

Jonah Hex
Stars: Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender
Directed by: Jimmy Hayward
Running time: 1 hour, 21 min.

As weird and mangled as its anti-hero's grimace, Jonah Hex is what happens when the writers of Crank meet the director of Horton Hears a Who. Ask yourself: Would Lady and the Tramp have been better if directed by Sergio Leone? Would Lonesome Dove have been improved if penned by Dr. Seuss? And why are the scribes of Crank (and Gamer) still working?

Questions that, had they been asked while the Hex script was being hammered out, might have spared all of us -- filmmakers and audiences alike -- from the bombastic, baffling, frenetic yet wooden result. How did it all go so wrong? How it is possible for any movie to seemingly borrow from Unforgiven, Wild Wild West and TV's Pushing Daisies -- all at the same time?

While the unfortunate prime culprit must be director Jimmy Hayward, it's undoubtedly unfair to blame a fiasco of this scope on a single individual. After all, there's the issue of whether or not Hex, the long-running, oft-cancelled DC Comics western outlaw, should have even received the big-screen treatment. Is Hollywood so starved for ideas it has to turn to failed comics for source material? And yes, I'm asking rhetorically.

It's a shame, certainly, for its star Josh Brolin, who is enjoyably grizzled as Hex, a ruthless bounty hunter still haunted by scars -- both internal and external -- left from the American Civil War. Not just because his performance is worthwhile, but because he's managed to assemble one of the most eclectic ensembles ever gathered in the name of summertime blockbusterdom.

Don't believe me? In addition to John Malkovich and Michael Fassbender as Hex's chief antagonists, the cast includes Will Arnett, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Aidan Quinn and Michael Shannon; even the stray dog Hex befriends has charisma. But the truncated running time -- less than an hour and a half -- leaves little opportunity for anyone to register. Shannon -- one of the most electrifying character actors working today -- appears so fleetingly, his own mother might blink and miss him.

Focus instead remains fixed squarely on Hex, who receives a chance for revenge and redemption when he learns the man who slaughtered his family, Confederate colonel Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich ... or is it Willie Nelson playing Malkovich?), isn't dead, as he had believed. Instead Turnbull has become one of the fledging nation's most treacherous enemies -- a homegrown terrorist mastermind, complete with a militia.

Further muddying matters are Hex's largely unexplained supernatural powers -- he has the ability to communicate with the dead, bringing corpses back to lurching life -- and Turnball's acquisition of a "super weapon" (think steampunk nukes) that can level entire cities.

Not surprisingly, the movie's tone is similarly conflicted, veering from comedy to drama to romance, as we're introduced to Hex's love interest Lilah (Megan Fox), a hooker with -- wait for it -- a heart of gold. Fox is adequately smouldering in the role, even if it's her corset that does most of the work. It's never clear why she's attracted to Hex or why he refuses to settle down with her, aside from his observation that everyone close to him ends up dying. And it's this lack of character development that makes it so difficult to care about anyone on-screen (well, aside from the dog).

By the grinding climax, the film is smash-cutting between a showdown on a ship, and Brolin and Malkovich brawling in some kind of red clay under-verse, intended, I think, to represent the nether world between this life and the next. Whatever. All I know is, the end couldn't come fast enough.

(This film is rated 14A)

http://geeksofdoom.com/2010/06/18/movie-review-jonah-hex/

Movie Review: Jonah Hex

Three-D Posted by Three-D | June 18th, 2010 at 12:40 am

Directed by Jimmy Hayward
Starring Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich
Release date: June 18, 2010

The bloodlust gains infinitely as the comic book adaptation of Jonah Hex expands to its inevitable conclusion. Moral values, social codes, or respect are all tossed out the window because director Jimmy Hayward doesn’t think it necessary to shed light on things that aren’t so aggressive. Violent films work when morality and humanity are at stake and when they are emphasized and demonstrated thoroughly (see No Country for Old Men and The Proposition). In Jonah Hex all of that is obsolete, making it a picture obsessed with intolerable cruelty, single mindedness, and unfathomable new-aged weaponry. Western films made their living on respectable themes and characters that showcased value and more than a one-track mind. This neo-neo western shows extreme contempt for all of that, making the splendor of the western even more distant from the public as it already is. Younger folk have a better opportunity of beholding the exhilaration and immersing themselves deeply into the atmosphere of the Wild West when they turn on their video game consoles and insert Red Dead Redemption.

Director Hayward, whose body of work only contains the animated Horton Hears a Who, makes the first botch as he puts his film in considerable jeopardy when he tries to encompass and explain the life of Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) in a rushed manner that is displayed in comic-book animation. But this is ill-conceived as far as plot is concerned. If this quick montage would have been shown in its fullness the entire film would have been strengthened because it shows us Hex as a man content with his life, his experiences with Indians (is this why he can talk to the dead?), and then as a man who has become derailed. The entire film is devoted to Hex, who is in a one-dimensional mode the entire time.

Set during the Civil War in the south, Hex no longer has the stomach for violence or warfare. He sees war as being fought by hypocrites on both sides. When he turns in Quentin Turnball (John Malkovich) and his band of outlaws (one being Michael Fassbender) for participating in shady and terroristic events, Hex will soon realize that he possesses the same amount of violence; vengeful violence. Hex’s hypocritical approach to warfare is brought about by Turnball and his gang as they punish Hex for squealing on them by tying him up, letting him watch his family burn alive, and then branding the side of his face so he constantly mourns the day Turnball got his revenge. Miraculously, or probably because it is a comic book adaptation, Hex survives after being left for dead for days (thanks to Indians) and finds himself as a bounty hunter working for the U.S. government, along with the town’s prostitute (Megan Fox), in tracking down Turnball who is planning a terrorist attack on our nation’s capital.

The concept of the neo-Western is a fascinating one. But this is smothered to the brink of death thanks to the extraordinarily persistent action scenes which are infested and contaminated to death with the excessive use of CGI. There are potent and relevant ideas also that are waiting to be exploited here (the pacifist perspective and slavery issue), but are disregarded because their connection with the exhaustive action scenes are irrelevant.

Even the acting suffers due to this as well; the uncanny wit that Malkovich so faithfully adheres to is practically ignored and Brolin’s tough guy snare can be confused as representing his feelings of being in this film. Fox’s sexual image is the only thing that is alive and well and that is detrimental to the film.

What a complete 180 Hayward does. His excursion into the animated world of children really must have put him through a living nightmare. Each of his characters in Jonah Hex he puts in severe peril, almost making him out to be a sadist. No one leaves the film unscathed and he doesn’t expound on anything that isn’t ultra-violent. Hayward’s intellectual competence is basically squashed in that he offers no new knowledge that anyone who watches this film can benefit from.

http://gordonandthewhale.com/theatrical-review-jonah-hex/

Theatrical Review: JONAH HEX
Jon Davis
by: Jon Davis
June 18th, 2010

Jonah Hex Image

Rating: 2/5

Director: Jimmy Hayward
Writer(s): Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor, William Farmer
Cast: Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender, Michael Shannon
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures

At first glance, JONAH HEX appears to be nothing more than a questionable credit for several actors who should have stayed far, far away from a project like this. Sadly, seeing the whole movie does nothing to change this. You need look no further than the trailer to see a couple of things that fans of the comic series will find irritating about this adaptation, one being the combination of the “machine gun horse” and the “dynamite crossbow,” and the other being Hex’s new found ability to bring dead people back to life for a little interrogation. Some may also notice from the trailer that any essence of the classic spaghetti western feel has been blown to bits and replaced with cheap explosions and music from Mastadon. If you’re a loyal reader, this movie will feel as if you dropped your kid off at daycare, and when you went back, they gave you a goat.

Actually, pretty much anyone who sees this movie will be given a goat, as you don’t have to be a fan of the source material to recognize this movie’s failures. The whole film feels very thrown together, with scenes jumping back and forth between reality and this supernatural world created for the movie, sometimes for no apparent reason. When a movie is only a scarce 82 minutes long, there isn’t much time to waste on worthless filler moments that make no sense to viewers. This misuse of time also leads to the serious misuse of talent. You would think that a cast including Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Aidan Quinn, Michael Shannon, Will Arnett, and Michael Fassbender would be capable of producing some pretty solid roles, at least for a couple of them, yet, out of the whole group, Brolin’s performance is the only one worth noting, as he does a fine job playing the part of Jonah, while the rest of the film falls apart around him. Malkovich was more frightening as Teddy KGB in ROUNDERS than he is in this mess.

Director Jimmy Hayward tears Jonah Hex’s real origin story apart to instead make Malkovich’s Quentin Turnbull responsible for the death of Hex’s family, after Jonah inadvertently caused the death of Turnbull’s son and Hex’s own friend, Jeb. Turnbull then leaves his brand on Jonah’s face, as a reminder of this already impossible to forget moment. Hex, not being the type to be branded, shaves the brand right off with a tomahawk, and sets out for vengeance…or so we’re told. The bulk of what could have made a much more interesting film is instead narrarated in a montage that basically says Turnbull died before Hex could get to him, and Jonah tries to put his vengeant engery into bounty hunting instead. Making for another complete waste of time. All this to set up some sort of surprise that Turnbull isn’t really dead? If Turnbull hadn’t died, and the movie was about Jonah Hex, badass, hunting down the man who killed his family, stopping at nothing like an old west Punisher, this might have worked. Instead, Turnbull fakes his death, and decides to make himself a national threat, leaving the President no choice but to call in the vengeful Jonah Hex, a former Confederate solider, to help out the good old US of A. So now Jonah is asked to turn in his tale of vengeance for one of patriotism. Aidan Quinn plays the part of the President, and does less with his time on screen than Michael Shannon, who didn’t actually get much time at all. Although he’s credited, he spends less time on screen than Jeffrey Dean Morgan, who went uncredited. As for Will Arnett, his crass demeanor, which really could have made for an irritating thorn in Hex’s side, instead came off as sniveling, weak, and pretty much unnecessary. Wes Bentley even shows up for just another unimportant bit role, as an assistant to the President. It’s as though Jimmy Hayward thought that flashes of recognizable faces would somehow be enough to make for a good movie.

Some may be looking at seeing JONAH HEX from a less serious angle, chalking this up as just another Summer smash of a movie that doesn’t need Oscar-worthy performances, so long as the explosions and action are good. Unfortunately, even that aspect of this movie fails. Turnbull’s biggest threat, the weapon he’s building that could supposedly level an entire nation, is less than intimidating on screen, especially when one of Turnbull’s men refers to the weapon’s detonators as “Pretty orange balls.” Hex does deliver some pretty killer blows at times, it’s just a shame that he’s seen more with his gadgets (which are delivered up by another snubbed actor, Lance Reddick) than he does with his guns and tomahawk.

So what does JONAH HEX have to offer? HEX offers up a lame, stereotypical storyline, uninteresting action sequences, along with plenty of confusing cuts and unneeded supernatural elements. All things considered, I’d probably rather have a goat.

http://theplaylist.blogspot.com/2010/06/review-jonah-hex-proves-that-every.html

6/17/2010
Review: 'Jonah Hex' Proves That Every Generation Gets Their Own 'Barb Wire'

At our critics' screening for Jimmy Hayward and Warner Bros.' new comic book actioner "Jonah Hex," many in the audience were doubled over in gales of derisive laughter. This did not seem right for many reasons, but chiefly that there's only cruelty found in such behavior. No, the right reaction is perhaps a massaging of one's temples or perhaps eyes buried in one's hands, for "Jonah Hex" is a series of terrible creative decisions stuck together with masking tape and low ambitions.

Running at barely 80 minutes, "Jonah Hex" feels like a shortened version of, shockingly, a much duller, more turgid film. It's almost it's own montage. "Hex" is so perfunctory, so stilted, so poorly written, directed and at times, acted, that it barely qualifies as a movie. It makes sense for critics to guffaw at, say, the "Resident Evil" movies, but there's something sad, even borderline handicapped about this entire endeavor. As if the hypothetical 100-105-minute-long mess wasn't dull enough, no movie deserves the type of treatment it appears "Hex" has received, chopped down by an editor hoping to create something resembling a commercial. Its incoherence, its clear contempt for physics, logic, human behavior, story structure, or even naked spectacle are partly the result of someone (Hayward, possibly rumored ghost-director Francis Lawrence) who shouldn't be allowed to direct traffic on a one-way street, crippled even further by the maddeningly dada edits provided by a few studio butchers people should hide the silverware from.

The list of working and/or talented actors awash in this mess is disheartening. The grizzled Josh Brolin is as good a pick as any to play the DC Comics gunslinger, and here, he's all dark humor and grimace. Hex is a Civil War soldier who we learn through arbitrarily-placed flashbacks interfered with the evil intentions of battalion leader Quentin Turnbull, resulting in the death of his family, a favor returned by the murder of Hex. While Hex mysteriously survives the violent revenge, he also develops an uncanny ability to speak to the deceased, a skill that befits his new gig as a bounty hunter above the law. As if it was the most original concept ever seen in a comic book movie adaptation, portions of this story are told through a hastily-animated segment that showcases Hex's other-worldliness we're already learning about from the narration.

However, Turnbull, sort of a latter day Tea Party activist, has concocted a plan to overthrow the still-young American democracy, stealing an old-fashioned WMD developed by the fledgling government, causing President Grant (Aidan Quinn, in the wrong movie) to seek out Turnbull's main opposition, Hex. See, the President remembers how Hex defied Turnbull's orders, and as a result had his family murdered while he was left for dead. Clearly, he's enough of an upgrade that Grant speaks the immortal words, "The fate of the world rests on his shoulders."

And it's that feeble set-up that gets the movie going, and by that we mean, it creaks into the second act, which you will not realize until you're five minutes from the closing credits. Hayward, an animation vet formerly of Pixar who directed "Horton Hears A Who" seems like an inspired choice for a medium-budget actioner with plenty of space for visual improvisation. However, "Hex" is both in a hurry and wasteful, filled with unenlightening dream sequences and flashbacks, sometimes folded within each other and handled without a shred of inventiveness or wit. To tell you the exact progression of scenes - Hex scouts Turnbull's headquarters, Hex is defeated soundly, Hex heals and/or is risen from the dead, Hex gallops back into action, rosy sunsets - obscures the fact that it's jammed together like a demo reel sandwich with zero connective tissue.

The script is by "Crank" masterminds Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, and you'd expect some naughty transgressiveness or bad taste interludes to curb the monotony, but whatever cuts were made clearly rid the film of any moments of color. What's surprising is that in addition to an eye-damaging color scheme where visually all tan becomes red and all black becomes dead space, "Hex" is a mundane, often boring offering. You can see where there's opportunity for a digression from standard action film staples, but a sequence where Hex is nursed back to health by a group of random, dialogue-less magic healing Native Americans (progress!) is shot and edited so quickly it's never apparent exactly how long Hex is down for the count, or what happened to him, or how he was healed, or if his hallucinations are fueled by the medicine, who these Native Americans are, or why they're saving his life, or...

Of course, if you ask any of these questions, "Hex"'s action starts jumping up and down, waving its hands and screaming, "Quick, look over here! Stuff!" We can speculate the one fragment of what's left of the Neveldine/Taylor draft is a short pitstop to an underground fighting tournament where a supernatural "snake-man" is making short work of his opponents. Snake-Man never returns, and the scene itself, serving no narrative purpose, is over and done with in about four screen minutes. Oh, and the random screaming man walking in and out of the shot during arbitrary camera cuts? Someone told us that's Michael Shannon, who retains "senior billing" ("...and Michael Shannon!") despite essentially being cut from the film. Lucky him.

Brolin remains a compelling screen presence at times, and we still stand by that particular bit of casting. It's that darn makeup job that's crippled the normally inexpressive, stoic actor, limiting whatever expressiveness he still had and obscuring his speech to an absurd degree. As a prosthetic, it doesn't look detailed or graphic enough, meaning half of the movie is spent forgetting you're watching this film and wondering why the kid from "The Goonies" stapled a pancake to his cheek. In shadows, Brolin's exaggerated grunt and scowl resembles Warren Oates at his most vulnerable. Once he steps into the light, the PG-13 scar looks like his Bubble Yum got away from him.

For those of you who say things like, "I would watch John Malkovich reading from the phone book!" you'll find "Hex" to be a treat, as Malkovich, clearly holding the material in contempt, pitches his performance in the range of "Jepsen, Anderson" and "Nugart, Nenah." Megan Fox, bless her, does as much as someone can with what little material she has as the standard "tough chick who can take care of herself... until she can't!" damsel-in-distress. Michael Fassbender, as a maniacal Irish henchman, seems to think "Hex" is a dry run for another of executive producer Akiva Goldsman's "Batman" movies. Meanwhile, it's nice to see faces like Wes Bentley (bloated, coked-out), Will Arnett (distracted, irrelevant) and Lance Reddick (who fills an embarrassing, wide-eyed "Lawd have merceh!" moment with as much dignity as he can muster).

Not one moment goes by in "Jonah Hex" where a single line, shot, visual conceit or story device doesn't misfire. Some will have a bit of curiosity about how a film can be so terrible, but do not indulge or humor that curiosity, as the only worth "Hex" has is a test reel to wannabe directors about what not to do. The film doesn't even carry value as an example of one of the most intriguing and rewarding genres, the western, and we struggle to consider worse examples of the genre. Shamefully, the film's startlingly unfinished coda, featuring our hero sailing off into a "Lawnmower Man" quality CGI background, seems to paint Hex as a superpowered do-gooder who will be the star of many other adventures in the near future. Considering all the supernatural business going on, it's the only menacing moment of "Jonah Hex." [F]

Posted by Gabe Toro at 5:01 PM

http://veryaware.com/2010/06/review-jonah-hex/

Review: JONAH HEX
Written by Scott Review Jun 17, 2010 Share

Let me start off by saying that JONAH HEX was #7 on our most anticipated summer films of 201o…needless to say I was excited. Despite having the ‘PG-13′ attached to it, I mean the majority of superhero films are ‘PG-13′ so that didn’t bother me at first. At some point I remembered that Neveldine & Taylor wrote the script, then my head exploded at the thought of it being ‘PG-13′. They have never written anything that would be considered less than a hard ‘R’.

Still, this is a superhero western starring Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, and Michael Fassbender so it couldnt possibly be bad…right? Wrong. This movie is a 75 minute trailer. I’m serious! From start to finish it only comes in at 75 minutes, and it honestly feels like you are watching a super long trailer. Oh and speaking of trailers, every good scene in the movie is ruined because of the trailers they released.

Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) is a scarred drifter and bounty hunter of last resort, a tough and stoic gunslinger who can track down anyone…and anything. Having survived death, Jonah’s violent history is steeped in myth and legend, and has left him with one foot in the natural world and one on the “other side.” His only human connection is with Lilah (Megan Fox), whose life in a brothel has left her with scars of her own.

Jonah’s past is about to catch up with him when the U.S. military makes him an offer he can’t refuse: in exchange for his freedom from the warrants on his head, he must track down and stop the dangerous terrorist Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich). But Turnbull, who is gathering an army and preparing to unleash Hell, is also Jonah’s oldest enemy and will stop at nothing until Jonah is dead. Based on the legendary character from the graphic novels, “Jonah Hex” is an epic adventure thriller about one man’s personal quest for redemption against the vast canvas of the battle between good and evil. To Jonah, serving the good and the evil haven’t proven to be profitable ventures, so why not make a little money while two sides settle their scores?

So enough about the synopsis, lets talk about why this movie is garbage. First off, not including the credits the film runs 75 minutes. 1 hour and 15 minutes to hash out an origin story for a superhero that has never previously been on the big screen, and the majority of people know nothing about. I was shocked to be walking out of the theater before my seat had even gotten warmed up.

The acting here, other than Megan Fox, was top notch. Absolutely no complaints there. I do have a major complaint about the fact that Michael Shannon is credited along with the people that share 99% of screen time, and we only get a glimpse of him for 2 seconds. I love Shannon and it pisses me off to no end to think that he had a big part in the film and it got all but cut out of the final theatrical version of the film.

The action scenes here could have been great, but they are short lived and horribly shot. I also found it annoying that in the first half of the movie when things start getting shot up it fades away and moves on to something else.

There is also an issue with the way they shot Megan Fox. Its hard to tell whether it was a ridiculous amount of makeup, CG, or some sort of soft focus. Her face looked almost blurry and I cant for the life of me figure out why they chose to go this route. Makes absolutely no sense, and takes you out of the movie.

Earlier when I said it plays like a super long trailer, what I meant that it never fully delves into any sort of story. It touches on a bunch of stuff but never hashes anything out.

I could go on and on as to why this movie is awful, but take my word for it…skip this and go see THE A-TEAM, you wont be sorry.

Rating: 1.5 out of 5

http://www.nola.com/movies/index.ssf/2010/06/jonah_hex_review_locally_shot.html

'Jonah Hex' review: Locally shot supernatural Western fails to hit the mark
Published: Friday, June 18, 2010, 12:21 AM Updated: Friday, June 18, 2010, 12:37 AM
Mike Scott, The Times-Picayune Mike Scott, The Times-Picayune

The DC Comics-inspired supernatural Western "Jonah Hex" certainly has the bad and the ugly covered, with a main character that has both a grotesquely scarred face and a deep-running mean streak.
Jonah HexJosh Brolin stars as the title character in 'Jonah Hex,' based on the old DC Comics figure. .JONAH HEX 2 stars, out of 4
Snapshot: An action-adventure, based on the dark DC Comics character, about a disfigured cowboy who is on the hunt for the man who killed his wife and child.
What works: The core idea is an intriguing one, and the film boasts nice visuals.
What doesn't: After undergoing a merciless editing process, it feels choppy, disjointed, and devoid of any soul.
Starring: Josh Brolin, John Maklovich, Meagan Fox, Michael Fassbender. Director: Jimmy Hayward. Rating: PG-13, for intense sequences of violence and action, disturbing images and sexual content. Running time: 1 hour 20 minutes. Where: See showtimes.

As for the good in this locally filmed shoot-'em-up? That's more of a hit-or-miss proposition, pilgrim.

Built on spasms of explosive summertime action interspersed with a vacant shell of an origins story about the disfigured cowboy-comic antihero on which it's all based, animator-turned-director Jimmy Hayward's first stab at directing a live-action film ends up feeling like one great, big missed opportunity.

That's because most of the pieces are there for what could have been a very good film, starting with the stellar cast, which includes Josh Brolin in the title role, Meagan Fox as his prostitute girlfriend, John Malkovich as his chief tormentor, and, perhaps most appealingly, Michael Fassbender as Malkovich's tattooed main minion.

Add high production values, a splash of humor and an intriguingly creepy concept (zombies!) and it looks like Hayward and company could be on to something -- on paper anyway. On celluloid, however, it's a different story, as that promise goes largely, frustratingly unfulfilled.

To be fair, "Jonah Hex" isn't as the horrendous film you might expect if you follow the online cynics who decried it as beyond hope when, after an early change in directors, it reconvened for 10 days of West Coast reshoots and a rocky, drawn-out post-production process. But it's probably close enough to make them shoot their Red Bull out of their nose in sheer giddiness anyway.

I can't be sure what Hayward's footage looked like before it made its way to the cutting room, but I can bet that his original vision and this finished product - which reeks of merciless editing - are two very different things. All that chopping ensured the studio of a box-office friendly PG-13 rating, but it also robbed Hayward's story of much of its soul.
Jonah HexMichael Fassbender, left, holds Josh Brolin down for John Malkovich's character in the supernatural Western 'Jonah Hex.'

(Whether it had a soul to begin with is a subject to be debated, at least until the DVD comes out, with what you can bet is a slew of deleted scenes.)

And so Will Arnett's debut at "serious" acting? Whittled to about three minutes of total screen time. Former Oscar nominee Michael Shannon's role? Reduced to a single line, 10 seconds of screen time. And the French Quarter chase scene Hayward waxed on about during production? Gone entirely.

Along those lines, it's just best to pretend the nightmarish red-clay valley sequences just didn't happen. They might have made sense in the original script - written by the one-named purveyors of bloody violence known as Neveldine and Taylor ("Crank," "Gamer") - but they sure don't do much in the finished product.

In fact, except for Hex and Turnbull, every character in the movie ends up being not so much a character as a sketch of a character. A stick figure, really.

That's especially true for Fox, who positively glows in her close-ups but who, once the camera backs out, looks just plain weird in her wasp-waisted corset. They say she's a good actress. They say we'll be stunned when she gets a juicy, meaningful part. This is not that part.

What's left is Jonah's backstory, told in a series of sporadic flashbacks that interrupt his disjointed hunt for the man who scarred him.

That man: Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich), a former Confederate officer who blames Hex (Brolin) for the death of his son. In addition to boasting terrible hygiene and a taste for absinthe, Turnbull also has an overdeveloped sense of vengeance. As payback, he ties Jonah down and forces him to watch his own wife and son burn to death. Then, to make his point ultra-clear, he brands Jonah's face and leaves him for dead.

Just Turnbull's luck, a band of Native Americans find Jonah and pluck him from the brink of death. Even after they revive the heavily scarred Jonah, however, it seems he's still got a foot in the Great Beyond, imparting him with a power to speak to the dead. It's creepy, but it's also handy for post-mortem investigations.

Investigations like, "Where's Turnbull?"

And so the disfigured Jonah, speaking in hoarse tones registering one notch above a Christian Bale "Batman" whisper, settles into a bloody new life as a bounty hunter. He asks no questions, and he settles disagreements with his arsenal of admittedly fun Bond-like absurdities, such as a horse-mounted Gatling gun and a pistol-sized crossbow that shoots sticks of dynamite.

Then comes his dream job: President Grant (Aiden Quinn) hires him to track down Turnbull after learning the old villain is trying to assemble a doomsday machine capable of flattening Washington.

This machine is built of giant gears, glowing balls and pure nonsense, but "Jonah Hex" isn't the kind of movie you'll want to question too deeply.

At just 80 minutes long (not counting the credits), if you do start asking questions, the film is liable to end before you get an answer.

http://www2.tbo.com/content/2010/jun/17/jonah-hex-short-sugarcoated-violence/

'Jonah Hex' is short, sugarcoated violence

Warner Bros.
Michael Fassbender stars as Burke and Josh Brolin plays the title character in the comic book-inspired action-adventure movie "Jonah Hex."

By DAVID GERMAIN

The Associated Press

Published: June 17, 2010

Critics always gripe that movies are too long and could stand some pruning.

Then you get the occasional movie, like comic-book adaptation "Jonah Hex," that's too short — so short, and so bad, you cringe at the thought of how awful whatever ended up on the cutting-room floor must be.

Take away the eight minutes of end-credits, a lengthy prologue sequence built around comic-book panels and some repetitive flashbacks of action we've already seen, and there's barely an hour's worth of actual movie in "Jonah Hex." And that's using the term "actual movie" generously.

Part of what's missing is the harder-core violence chopped to get "Jonah Hex" down to a PG-13 rating, the theory being that an R rating scares off customers. That's the same mistake made on Sam Raimi's "Drag Me to Hell" last year.

Raimi's horror tale of a woman consigned to hell by a gypsy curse needed the blood-and-gore elbow room of an R rating, and who knows? If it had not been defanged by the PG-13 rating, maybe people would have shown up to see it.

So too "Jonah Hex," starring Josh Brolin as a disfigured 19th century bounty hunter with his own connections to hell, needed to take the gloves off.

This is a story about a man who watched his wife and son burned alive, communes savagely with the dead and vows unholy vengeance against the man responsible for all his troubles.

The subject matter alone will scare off a sizable chunk of movie-goers, while the PG-13 rating will annoy many fans of the comic book. So the filmmakers have shot off both feet by telling a nasty story then dusting it in sugar.

Brolin's Jonah Hex (people always seem to call him by his full name, as though the extra syllables were needed to fill out the movie's running time) is a Confederate Civil War veteran who turns to hunting down bad guys after his family is immolated by evil-for-the-sake-of-being evil villain Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich).

Turnbull also horribly scars Jonah's face with a branding iron. The whole experience somehow leaves Jonah able to bring the dead back to life momentarily with a touch, so he can interrogate them (this arbitrary superpower comes with its own phony rules that include the dead's ability to see the comings and goings of anyone they knew. Handy trick for a bounty hunter looking for info).

With Turnbull aiming to unleash a doomsday weapon to destroy the United States as it celebrates its centennial, Jonah is enlisted by the federal government to stop the madman.

The action feels choppy and unfinished, continually and jarringly stacking up a colossal body count without showing the killshots that made so many people dead. Such prudishness does not serve a supernatural story set in bloodthirsty pioneer days.

Jimmy Hayward, who directed the animated hit "Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!" and was an animator on "Toy Story," "Finding Nemo" and other beloved Pixar films, makes his live-action directing debut on "Jonah Hex." That career progression is so puzzling, it's probably best to leave it alone.

The movie's adapted from the DC Comics series by screenwriters Mark Neveldene and Brian Taylor, who wrote and directed Jason Statham's "Crank" action thrillers. That career progression makes sense.

As for the careers of the on-screen players, well, Brolin's had a good run lately, and he does try to bring gravity to Jonah, even if you can't understand a lot of his dialogue because of a speech impediment caused by his facial wound. You can't blame Brolin too much for trying to land his own action franchise.

Megan Fox — yes, her again — co-stars as Jonah's love interest, Lilah, a prostitute with a heart of cardiac muscle, and a brain apparently made of the same material. Her role is skimpier than the necklines of her dresses, and she delivers her lines as robotically in the 1870s as she did in the "Transformers" flicks.

There's nothing wrong with Malkovich working for a paycheck, as he's clearly doing here, only he's not working very hard. Turnbull is an utterly forgettable villain who seems to have two modes of speaking, boring and really boring.

Aidan Quinn mucks his way through a few sad moments as President Ulysses S. Grant, while Will Arnett adds some comic tension by doing nothing as a stonily straight-faced military aide. You just expect Arnett, a master of smarm in "Arrested Development," "30 Rock" and other roles, to lose it and burst out laughing at any moment.

Wish he had. "Jonah Hex" could have used some laughs.

*1/2, PG-13, 82 minutes

http://www.reviewstl.com/jonah-hex-josh-brolin-megan-fox-6-18-10-john-malkovich/

Jonah Hex

Zac Oldenburg | Jun 18, 2010

The latest, and possibly most under the radar, comic book film this summer is the adaptation of Jonah Hex and the results are a mixed bag as the films focus seems to be in a lot of wrong places.

Hex is a Confederate soldier of some rank but when he turns on his regiment and shoots his best friend dead the Confederate General Turnbull, and father to Hex’s best friend, hunts Hex down, murders his family, and leaves him for dead with a brand on the face to remind him of who did this to him. We are then given a quick rundown of the next few beats in Hex’s life, Turnbull apparently dies, and Hex is left as a supernatural bounty hunter who can briefly resurrect the dead with his touch. As he reeks havoc on the outlaws he hunts, a bounty is in turn put on Hex and the hunter is also the hunted. As Hex tries to earn his keep and stay alive Turnbull turns up alive and constructing a secret military weapon and the president recruits Hex to hunt down his nemesis and save the country.

Now, I know this synopsis is a bit scatter shot but sadly this is just the nature of the film. There is a solid film hiding in here somewhere but the film never really knows what it should be focusing on. At only 81 minutes, the film is fast paced and scoots along fairly well, but at the same time seems a bit slow as you are trying to figure out what exactly is going on; like you are pausing the film in your mind almost. I think this discombobulating rests solely on the efforts of the editing team who very oddly assembled this film together. We get a montage opening of Hex’s exploits in the civil war before our first full scene as his family is taken from him, but then as we expect to see him hunt down Turnbull and see how he became somewhat supernatural we are put into fast forward. Instead of seeing his attempts to take out Turnbull we are given a brief animated voice over by Hex who mentions how he was given this power by some local Native Americans, we learn of Turnbull’s apparent death, and are caught up on Hex’s now bounty hunting profession. The weird thing about this is that the film flashback’s to a number of the films early moments that were filmed live action and one has to wonder why they went this route. Now, I mean they get their point across with the flashbacks, rather quickly actually, but I can’t help but think that this film would have played much better if played out far more linearly. The film also seems to have exercised a few sequences as well as they allude to action moments unseen and apparently a sex scene was left on the cutting room floor as well between Fox and Brolin. Why cut sex and violence in a film that seems to revel in those topics in which its two leading characters are a lawless vigilante and a prostitute?

But I didn’t edit the movie, so I will stop giving my suggestions and further investigate what we are given. Now for all the head scratching that the structure of the film caused there seem to be a few too many senseless detours in the film as well. And while there are a number of good actors to visit in these brief supporting bits, I found myself more than befuddled with a couple of steps on Hex’s path. Speaking of confusing, the least explained bit of the movie is Hex’s mythology to his powers and I really wish we were given the reasons and motivations for the local Natives to keep him alive and instill him with his powers.

The film does have some things going for it though. The actors are all quite solid in their roles with Josh Brolin doing a fine job as Hex, playing him with the right bit of knowing silliness of this all. Megan Fox does a good job at being both the sex symbol they intended as well as kicking a bit of ass when the part calls for that as well. John Malkovich is also quite fun as the nasty and down right awful human being that Turnbull is and his malice and pure senseless nature is one of the things the film does exceedingly well as he slaughters countless innocent lives. Michael Fassbender, one of my favorite actors right now, is a bit one note as Turnbull’s right hand man but he is effectively nasty and annoying and we appropriately hate him. A small batch of good actors are all solid but are way under used, these include Will Arnett, Michael Shannon, Wes Bentley, and Lance Reddick who all show up along Hex and Turnbull’s paths. Jeffery Dean Morgan was my favorite cameo though as Hex’s dead best friend who he has to dig up and talk to for info on his father. The films effects are also quite solid at time, as are it’s many explosive set pieces, but my favorite and far too underused bit is Hex’s waking of the dead and their slow burn they encounter if resurrected. They do a lot of cool bits with these moments and I felt like it was a tad underutilized.

In the end, Jonah Hex is a cool premise that seems to kind of gotten lost too many times along the way. From Eli Whitney creating a doomsday weapon, unique super natural resurrection ideas, and an inspired setting in post Civil War America there is a lot to be intrigued by in this picture. Poor editing, little explanation, and a story structure that is just a bit all over the place hamper the picture from ever running with its good ideas and excelling. Whether it is it’s odd use of flashback over just telling that story in the film naturally or an even weirder integration of a dream like fight when Hex nears death, there are just too many head scratching steps in this film. With all this said, the movie is by no means awful, and in its brevity is a quick and fun watch even with its missteps. Brolin is a fun protagonist and his supporting cast is full of familiar faces I just can’t help but see a far better film hiding somewhere in here and in its source material.

Jonah Hex is a C

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20100618/ENT/706189717

Published: Friday, June 18, 2010

‘Jonah Hex' vexed by lame script, puny powers

By Robert Horton
Herald Movie Critic
With a script as messed up as its hero's face, “Jonah Hex” throws a serious cow pie at Hollywood's love affair with comic books. This one is dead on arrival.

Josh Brolin plays Jonah Hex, a DC Comics character with a distinct superpower: Having once been half-dead himself, he can confer with the departed.

Displays of this talent are just about the only inventive part of the movie (Jonah lays his hands on a cadaver, and the lifeless corpse springs to life for a brief conversation).

Scarred across his face by villainous Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich, looking disgusted with himself), bounty hunter Jonah, of course, seeks revenge.

He has tender feelings for a prostitute (Megan Fox, of “Transformers” notoriety), who keeps turning up at opportune moments.

Just about the only person who seems to have gotten out of bed each morning with an actual desire to work on the film is Michael Fassbender, late of “Inglourious Basterds,” who gleefully throws himself in the role of Turnbull's wicked Irish sidekick.

You can't really blame Josh Brolin for his lifeless performance in the central role. With an elaborate prosthetic scar covering one side of his face, turning his mouth into a permanently gaping rictus, Brolin can barely get his lines out.

And what lines. The script, partly by “Crank” authors Neveldine and Taylor (they prefer last-name billing), is an exceptionally dull tale of Turnbull's pursuit of a super weapon allegedly designed by cotton gin inventor Eli Whitney, which will reduce Washington, D.C., to rubble.

President Ulysses Grant is played by Aidan Quinn, who seems a little skittish for the legendary fighting general. And then there's Megan Fox, who looks (most likely due to post-production digital smoothing) like a wax figure.

I was going to say “a wax figure come to life,” but that would be overly generous.

But with this material and director Jimmy Hayward's can't-sit-still style, even Meryl Streep wouldn't make an impression. This film never gets a foothold in story, mood or character: you know, the basic stuff of your average movie.

When it comes to facial-scar prosthetics, however, this is absolutely top-notch work. Fans of such things, take note.

“Jonah Hex”

Dead-on-arrival adaptation of a DC comic book, about a western bounty hunter (Josh Brolin) seeking revenge against the scoundrel (John Malkovich) who done him wrong. Dull to a fault, the movie comes to life only when Jonah uses his powers to talk the dead. Megan Fox co-stars.

Rated: PG-13 for violence, language

Showing: Alderwood mall, Everett Stadium, Galaxy Monroe, Marysville Stanwood, Meridian, Metro, Oak Tree Plaza, Woodinville

http://www.hawkeyenews.net/mobile/jonah-will-hex-audiences-1.1493215

"Jonah" will hex audiences

By Trevor Wood

Staff Writer

Published: Friday, June 18, 2010

Updated: Friday, June 18, 2010
Jonah Hex

Mixing western action with supernatural elements and a side order of comic book hokiness, "Jonah Hex" is a jumbled mess. Thankfully, at only 80 minutes, any viewers it might have are spared from wasting too much of their life away watching it. This film is a complete waste of all the people's involved time including the poor projectionist who will have to watch it over and over and over again.

The film is based on the comic of the same name. Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) is a former soldier turned bounty hunter after the film's antagonist, Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), killed his family and disfigured Hex. With Turnbull thought to be dead Hex drops his grudge against the unsavory character, that is until he resurfaces after stealing some sort of ridiculous super weapon and takes to acting like some sort of western terrorist. Of course there has to be a love interest; enter prostitute Lilah (Megan Fox) to add sex appeal and babbling.

The plot is, frankly, crap and is so under developed it seems like half the film was left on the cutting room floor. Weird transitions between scenes, ridiculous dialogue and downright dumb situations is what "Jonah Hex" is comprised of. Also, why was Turnbull a terrorist anyway and, more importantly, who cares. How this film ever got made is a true mystery. The writers of this screenplay should not only be banned from writing another film they should be prohibited from ever even touching a pen again. In fact, everyone involved should be deported to some remote hell for visiting this film equivalent to Armageddon upon poor, unsuspecting moviegoers.

The acting isn't that bad, but Brolin is subjected to growls and bad one liners. Malkovich seems to be regulated to doing his patented over the shoulder dumbfounded look while Fox does nothing but trash up the screen with her seductive looks with the little amount of time she appears in the film. The most entertaining aspect of the film is the comments made by Michael Fassbender. It is unbelievable to thank that he equated his character, an over the top Irish thug, to the Riddler or Alex DeLarge, of "A Clockwork Orange" fame.

Speaking of the actors involved, does Jimmy Hayward think he is Terrance Malik? Numerous name and talented actors were billed as being in the film yet if they had one scene that was over 30 seconds they were lucky. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is, literally, resurrected long enough to make a fool out of himself while Oscar nominee, Michael Shannon, has two lines of dialogue and is barely recognizable. There has to be more scenes that these guys were in that are lying around somewhere. However, audiences might have lucked out. The more that is cut out of this film the better.

"Jonah Hex" is the very definition of a bad film. It's not just dumb, action exploitive bad it is an "I hate my eyes and ears for subjecting my brain to it" bad. There is absolutely nothing of any value or entertainment in this film. Hopefully, by some divine intervention, all copies of it will suddenly catch fire so that this film can wreak no more havoc then it already has on its viewers. No Bueno indeed.

http://www.firstshowing.net/2010/06/18/sound-off-warner-bros-jonah-hex-movie-your-thoughts/

Sound Off: Warner Bros' Jonah Hex Movie - Your Thoughts?

June 18, 2010
by Alex Billington
Jonah Hex

Now that you've seen it, what did you think? Hitting theaters this weekend is another new DC Comics adaptation, Jonah Hex, about the gunslinging anti-hero bounty hunter. It was directed by Horton Hears a Who! director Jimmy Hayward and stars Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich, Will Arnett and Michael Fassbender. Jonah Hex currently has 14% on Rotten Tomatoes, but is it really that bad? Is there anything redeeming about it or is it just a bad movie from start to finish? How was Josh Brolin as Jonah Hex or John Malkovich? Good at all? If you've seen it, leave a comment and let us know what you thought of Jonah Hex!

To fuel the fire, this movie was terrible, just plain awful. Sorry, but I just have to say it. I've been comparing it to Frank Miller's The Spirit (which was one of the worst movies ever) it's so bad. And worst of all, there really isn't anything to like about it. I tried to appreciate the visuals, the directing, the performances from a stellar cast, but all of it was terrible. It's a shame to see such talent and such a great concept go to waste. I would've rather have seen Crank directors Neveldine & Tayor's version of this that they originally pitched, that was intense and R-rated. This Jonah Hex was laughably bad and quickly forgettable, a complete mess.

What did you think of Jonah Hex? One of the worst movies this year or mildly entertaining?

http://www.azreporter.com/news/index.php?itemid=1076

Arizona Reporter - Susan Granger Reviews - 18/06
"Jonah Hex" Is Awful...

Based on a legendary antihero from a DC Comic series that dates back to the 1970s, this savage action/adventure Western is a prime contender for Worst Picture of the Year.

Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) is a Louisiana Civil War veteran whose family is deliberately incinerated by Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), a former colonel in the Confederate army who blames Jonah for the death of his soldier son, Jeb, who served in the same unit. Not only is Jonah forced to watch his wife and child scream in agony but Turnbull and his sadistic henchman (Michael Fassbender) mutilate his face, hideously disfiguring him. After enduring this near-death experience, Jonah is revived by friendly Indians and emerges almost invincible with a creepy, supernatural ability to ‘talk' with the dead.

Propelled by a need for vengeance, anguished Jonah becomes a vigilante/bounty hunter, toting a tomahawk and 1873 Colt in one holster and a Remington conversion in the other. There are twin Gatling guns attached to his horse, along with a crossbow rigged to shoot sticks of dynamite. So when it becomes obvious that crazed Turnbull is planning to overthrow the United States government in Washington during America's centennial, Jonah is recruited to track him down by President Ulysses S. Grant (Aidan Quinn), who says, "The very fate of our nation may rest on Jonah Hex."

Meanwhile, above a New Orleans saloon, resides Jonah's only friend, a prostitute named Lilah (Megan Fox), whose claim to fame is an astonishingly corseted 20" waist.

Working from a pulpy screenplay by Brian Neveldine & Mark Taylor ("Crank," "Gamer"), along with William Farmer, director Jimmy Hayward ("Horton Hears a Who!") favors style over substance with no clue how to bolt together the fragmentary story and create the suspenseful tone necessary for a graphic novel except to blast Mastodon's heavy metal score.

Clocking in at a mere 82 minutes, including closing credits, it's intolerably tedious. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Jonah Hex" is an awful 2. Everyone connected with this abomination should hang their heads in shame.

By Susan Granger 2010 "Jonah Hex" (Warner Bros.)

http://www.hollywoodoutbreak.com/2010/06/18/jonah-hex-a-western-that-goes-south/

18Jun2010

Josh Brolin has proven he could command the screen, as No Country For Old Men and W attest, and he acquits himself rather well with the supernatural Western Jonah Hex. Unfortunately, Jonah Hex, based on an obscure DC Comics character, is a special effects driven rollercoaster masquerading as a tough guy revenge story, and although director Jimmy Hayward tries to bring a bit of a spaghetti Western flavor to the mix, the film flounders under his hands.

The plotline is interesting enough: Brolin is a Civil War vet who disobeys orders to burn down a hospital kills his best friend “Jeb Turnbull” (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) in the process. “Hex’’s” good intentions are punished by “Jeb’s” ruthless father, “Quentin Turnbull” (John Malkovich, giving uninspired work) who kills the gunslinger’s wife, son, and leaves our hero scarred, bloody and beaten. Saved by Native Americans from death, “Hex” is now able to talk to the dead, and a later sequence which has him pulling “Jeb” from the grave for a midnight conversation is the film’s highpoint.

“Hex’s” chance at revenge is seemingly derailed upon hearing the news of “Turnbull’s” death, and he turns into a vengeful bounty hunter to satiate his anger. However, “Turnbull” is indeed alive, and with a deadly bomb expert/Irish fighter named “Burke” (Michael Fassbender from Inglourious Basterds) at his side, he is bent on stealing the U.S. government’s prized weapon and lay waste to the U.S. of A. “Hex” is then hired by the President Grant (Aidan Quinn) to stop “Quentin” in his tracks, and the bounty hunter is more than willing to oblige. Megan Fox plays a hooker named “Lilah” in the film, and though she is definite eye candy, her acting, like the movie’s screenplay, is essentially non-existent.

Brolin does commendable work to keep this movie afloat, but Hayward really never has a true handle on the material. Is it a dark morality play about redemption, or is it a CGI laden summer movie? Maybe it’s a comic book film just for the fanboys, or is it a revisionist Western? There is absolutely nothing wrong with mixing up genres, but the film’s compass is all over the place. “Hex” has super powers, but why doesn’t he talk to the Native Americans? Is there any kind of backstory with “Lilah” and “Hex”? Clocking in at 80 minutes, one assumes that Hayward just said “screw it, let’s just blow stuff up!!” And unfortunately, amidst all the explosions, the inkling of a storyline, sense of character motivation, and overall inspired filmmaking was left in the wreckage.

This reviewer must one that Fassbender does interesting work as “Burke,” a villain who is miles more interesting than the somnolent “Turnbull,” and it’s kinda cool to watch character actors like Wes Bentley, Will Arnett (in a dramatic role, no less!!), Oscar nominee Michael Shannon, and Tom Wopat pop in and out of the film. Plus, as earlier mentioned, the “Hex” and “Jeb’s” confrontation at the grave, where they both go to toe to toe and hash out their differences, is compelling viewing. The best Westerns don’t rely on watching a fistful of dynamite (excuse the Sergio Leone reference) or a Gatling Gun decimate a gang of outlaws; the true moments come out of pure drama (Clint Eastwood’s monologue on killing a man in Unforgiven, John Wayne’s lonesome walk at the end of The Searchers). Somewhere along the way, Jonah Hex lost this lesson, and thankfully Brolin is back on the saddle with the Coen Brothers film True Grit. As for director Jimmy Hayward and Megan Fox, well pardners, sometimes it’s just best to ride away…just ride away.

http://thefilmstage.com/2010/06/18/review-jonah-hex/

[Review] Jonah Hex
Posted on 18 June 2010 by Jack Giroux

Jonah Hex is the worst kind of bad movie. For one, it’s not something you can laugh at it. It also had a vast amount of potential. Everything on paper should have made it gangbusters: Josh Brolin as Jonah Hex, Michael Fassbender present and of course having solid source material to take cue from. Instead of reaching its fullest grand potential, it’s a ponderous train wreck. It’s like 80 minutes of watching someone throw gold off a cliff. Yes, it’s that bad.

This review won’t be a comparison to the comic. That’d just be mean and redundant. But a major difference must be aired: the newer volumes of Jonah Hex are real genuine westerns. They feel authentic and works as total homages. Here, it’s not that at all. This couldn’t be more of a made-by-committee type of film. They tried to keep it grounded in the Western realm, but failed miserably. It’s an action movie by all accounts that doesn’t resemble anything great about the comics or the genre. It’s like a twelve-year-old’s wet dream of a Western: hot woman, nonstop action and a cool, grisly lead at the center of it.

Even those generic ingredients easily could have made for at the very least a dumb fun action film, but it even can’t meet that standard. Warner Bros.’s promotion didn’t set the bar very high and it doesn’t even come close to being a passable summer blockbuster. The action is so poorly constructed it’s completely incomprehensible and void of exhilaration.

It’s not fun watching Mr. Hex take down a bunch of guys or blowing things up. Why would it be when you can barely follow what he’s doing? The action also feels incredibly watered down. The film doesn’t have to be gratuitous in terms of violence, but coherent enough to follow. There’s just never a sense of genuine danger.

Poor action can be forgiven, but the sloppy storytelling is unforgivable. It jumps from plot point to point in a hurry to get to a “big” finale that couldn’t have been more underwhelming. Within the first two minutes it’s apparent that this isn’t going to work. It starts off with hammy narration and a cringe-inducing, staged origin story of Hex. It shows him fighting in the Civil War and looks like something akin to a History Channel reenactment.

It’s as clunky as the rest of the film, all of it moving at a sluggish pace. Even at a bare 80 minutes, it’s excruciating. Jimmy Hayward‘s direction is aimless. Even standard conversations are shot awkwardly. He or whoever else is to blame didn’t seem to know what type of movie to make.

The list of what went wrong goes on and on. Brolin doesn’t work as the title character. He has his moments, but seems uncomfortable in the makeup and doesn’t quite find the right tone. He ranges from brooding to campy. Just like the rest of the film, he’s all over the place. It never knows what it wants to be, a serious comic book movie or a Roger Corman-esque camp-fest.

It’s completely jarring. As for the rest of the cast, they are wasted. Fassbender is the only one who seems to be having fun. At times, you wish his sidekick to Turnball (Hex’s nemesis played by John Malkovich) would just kill off both the leads so it’d be over. Fassbender strikes the perfect tone and even with nothing to do he delivers an enjoyable performance. Fox and Malkovich, on the other hand, are forgettable. It’s hard to say they’re bad considering they are given nothing to do.

There’s no real need to describe the plot considering the film itself doesn’t even seem to care. It seems so invested in delivering on the action and yet fails at even that. This isn’t funny at all. It’s good source material butchered and thrown up on screen in a rushed job. Apparently there’s a longer cut out there – 20 minutes to be precise – but it’s doubtful it would do much. Unless it adds enough exposition to find a voice, fixes all of the pacing issues, inputs genuine character traits, offers cohesive action and is full of all of the good one-liners a film like this should have, it won’t do much to help the final product. In the end, Jonah Hex just feels like another Ghost Rider.

2.5 out of 10

What did you think of Jonah Hex?

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2010/06/18/jonah_hex

Friday, Jun 18, 2010 14:01 ET
"Jonah Hex": Hard-boiled heavy-metal idiocy
Josh Brolin, John Malkovich and Megan Fox's impossible waist can't save a messy screen version of the DC comic
By Andrew O'Hehir

*

Megan Fox in "Jonah Hex"

It's a challenge to take a comic-book adaptation that stars Josh Brolin, John Malkovich and Megan Fox and drain nearly all the fun out of it. "Jonah Hex" is one of those movies that combines a certain amount of being ridiculous on purpose with a great deal of pseudo-profound silliness. As the eponymous undead ex-Confederate drifter, Brolin has a grotesquely scarred face that makes him dribble whiskey like a toddler drinking cranapple juice, a hooker girlfriend (Fox) with a spray-on tan and an impressively corseted wasp waist, and an ability to reanimate the dead temporarily, mostly just to torture them.

Don't get me wrong; those are the good-silly things about "Jonah Hex." Director Jimmy Hayward, whose only previous film was the bastardized Hollywood version of Dr. Seuss' "Horton Hears a Who," turns the long-running DC Comics saga -- which began as the story of an Eastwood-esque Western loner, before venturing into quasi-spiritual weirdness -- into a complete stereotype of what movies made for the ADHD/gamer-addict population are like. (The screenplay was written by a two-man team that calls itself simply "Neveldine & Taylor," perhaps hoping that the next time they go up for a big movie gig they can claim to be the other guys named Neveldine and Taylor.)

Jonah's back-story, which involves his long-running blood feud with Quentin Turnbull, a rogue Confederate general played by Malkovich, is cut up and scattered throughout the movie in random recycled bits and pieces that might be memories and might be, I don't know, visions from hell. Meanwhile, the narrative's forward motion -- consider that entire phrase ironic -- is told in little staccato bursts, disconnected violent tableaux accompanied by yowling faux-metal guitar. It isn't just that no effort is expended on old-fogey ideas like character development; it's more that Hayward doesn't even try to make individual scenes make sense.

The movie goes like this: Jonah shows up someplace, apparently teleporting from Nevada mining camps to New Orleans to rural Georgia (journeys that would take weeks in the 1870s). He mutters incomprehensibly at someone out of the corner of his disfigured mouth and then starts shooting people with his Gatling gun, or his automatic crossbow, or his dynamite revolver. (OK, that one is kind of cool.) How-de-dow-de-dow, go the guitars.

Then he gets badly hurt, or pretty nearly kilt, and the Crow Indian medicine men, muttering "Not this guy again!" in their native tongue, have to dance around and chant and rub oregano on his wounds, causing Jonah to barf up an actual, living crow. (Get it? Get it? Oh, you're right, there's nothing to get.) Then it's back to sultry Megan in the New Orleans whorehouse, although all they do is smooch a little in artfully backlit shots, possibly because this is a PG-13 title and possibly because sexual intercourse might cause her to snap in half at that architecturally improbable 20-inch waist.

Malkovich, who seems to take pride in doing the best he can with silly roles in bad movies, is impressively lugubrious as Turnbull, a shaggy and deracinated Southern gentleman who prepares a mint julep while also preparing to launch a 19th-century precursor to the atom bomb. This whole story is a little bit the alternate-history genre known as steampunk and a little bit "Wild Wild West" -- but then, wasn't that TV series steampunk before there was a word for it? When Turnbull brands his initials on Jonah's face in a scene that I guess is meant to be terrifying, it's hard to suppress the giggles -- it appears that Jonah has become the property of Quentin Tarantino.

But this movie's set-pieces are so restrictive and meaningless that Malkovich doesn't really have much to do, and the same goes for Fox and even Brolin, who never gets beyond a tough-guy growl and a few wisecracks. Only Irish actor Michael Fassbender, playing a villainous lieutenant of Turnbull's who strongly resembles the Lucky Charms leprechaun, seems to be enjoying himself. Aidan Quinn plays President Ulysses S. Grant (is that random casting or what?), who in real life was too busy drinking and taking bribes to pay attention to anything else, but here fulfills the awkward role an old friend of mine calls Mr. Exposition. You know: "Turnbull has the weapon? You don't say! Where will he attack next? I want you to bring me Jonah Hex -- he was a hero once!"

If I had to guess, I'd speculate that "Jonah Hex" is barely 80 minutes long because Hayward came in with an unholy mess of incoherent footage, and this was as close as the editing team could come to something resembling a movie. On the other hand, Hayward and his producers may genuinely believe that, hey, this is what the kids want these days. Which might be even worse. I've seen stupider movies than "Jonah Hex" (arguably I've seen some this month), but fans of the comic book's spooky, dense melodrama deserve a lot better.

http://frontrow.dmagazine.com/2010/06/at-least-jonah-hexs-writers-keep-it-short/

At Least Jonah Hex’s Writers Keep it Short
By Will Arbery June 18th, 2010 1:33pm

AMC Northpark 15 8687 N. Central Expy. Dallas, TX 75225
Dates
Opens Jun 18

Jonah Hex is the kind of guy who walks into the saloon or hotel room or blacksmith shop of an old acquaintance, and the old acquaintance will say “Well, if it isn’t Jonah Hex,” without even looking up, and then proceed to risk his own life for Jonah Hex, because By God it’s Jonah Hex.

Jonah Hex is the kind of guy who roams the post-Civil War lands bounty hunting, hoping that maybe if he kills enough anonymous men, he will forget the day he was forced to watch his family burned alive by John Malkovich.

John Malkovich is the kind of actor who you always expect to be better than he actually is. Megan Fox is the kind of actress who should never be considered for film again. Aidan Quinn is the kind of Ulysses S. Grant who somehow is quite young and svelte. Michael Fassbender is the kind of actor who should keep accepting roles from Quentin Tarantino and not Jimmy Hayward.

Hayward, who used to be an animator, begins this film with a bizarre expository cartoon (I suppose to nod to the original Jonah Hex comic). By the way, Quentin Tarantino (is it a coincidence that the villain’s initials, and the scar branded on Hex’s cheek, are Q.T.?) is the kind of director that a project like this needs. He proved with Inglourious Basterds that re-writing history can be done, if you keep the Churchills and Grants in the corner, and, generally, if you have something to say.

Jonah Hex is the kind of brusque, unaffectionate yet good-hearted guy who would be played by Clint Eastwood in his younger days (in fact, a Wanted Poster for Hex is clearly drawn in Clint’s likeness), if Clint Eastwood had really bad taste. Instead he’s played by Josh Brolin, who should be the leading man more often, but preferably in real movies with real scripts, based on real human experience.

The guys who wrote Jonah Hex are the kind of guys who keep their movies mercifully short, but remarkably unimaginative. At one point Hex is asked how he got the scar on his face for just the second time in the movie, and Hex kills the guy and then responds that he’s “out of wiseass answers.” Well, to be fair, coming up with two whole lines that establish some sort of continuity and rhythm is pretty hard.

By the way, there’s a plot that does things and then ends.