Previews, reviews and spoilers

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/weekendwarriornews.php?id=67018

Jonah Hex (Warner Bros.)
Starring Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Will Arnett, Michael Shannon, Michael Fassbender
Directed by Jimmy Hayward (co-director of Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who); Written by Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor (Crank, Gamer, Crank: High Voltage)
Genre: Action, Thriller
Rated PG-13
Tagline: "Revenge Gets Ugly"
Plot Summary: Bounty hunter and drifter Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) survived an attempt to kill him leaving him with a horrifying scar and warrants on his head, but the military makes him an offer to find and stop the terrorist Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) who has gathered his own army of men who will stop at nothing to finish what they started and kill Hex for real.

Analysis:

As comic books continue to be a great source material for Hollywood, here is one of the odder choices from a studio that's brought many DC Comics books to the big screen, and not just the Superman and Batman movies, but also some of the grown-up specialty graphic novels like Alan Moore's V For Vendetta and Watchmen, and the Keanu Reeves version of Constantine, which was kind of based on the comic book character of the same name. While none of those did huge business, they did respectably based on their cost, which may be why they decided to take a bit of a chance with a lesser-known DC Comics character.

Jonah Hex was created during the '70s for the pages of "All-Star Western," a book that tried to revive the once-popular Western comics genre that was more commonplace during the '50s. DC Comics published the book for quite a long stretch, and then the character was revived a few times, most notably in the '90s when horror writer Joe Lansdale and Tim Truman delved more into the supernatural aspects of the character. Currently, the Jonah Hex comic has been more popular than ever thanks to the work of writers Jimmy Palmiotti and Justin Gray, who have returned Hex to his roots, although it's still a drop in the bucket compared to superhero books like Superman and Spider-Man.

Because the comic character isn't that well known among movie audiences, the key to selling the movie was getting known actors for key roles and tryng to sell it more as an action movie than the normal slow-paced Westerns we've seen before. Hex seems like a role that Josh Brolin was born to play, which is why comic fans were very much behind the casting of the actor who had just been nominated for an Oscar for his role in Gus Van Sant's Milk after appearing in Ridley Scott's American Gangster and the Coen Brothers' Oscar-winning No Country for Old Men. Brolin did a good job in the latter playing a tough cowboy type and Jonah Hex allows him to play off that image of him. Playing his love interest in the movie is super-sexy Megan Fox who had come off the "Transformers" movies--quite literally, in fact--but hasn't really proven herself as a box office draw with the horror movie Jennifer's Body disappointing during its release last fall. The cast is rounded out by John Malkovich as the bad guy Turnbell, Mike Fassbender from Inglourious Basterds while Will Arnett plays a non-comic role as a military officer. (We've heard from people who've seen it that actor Michael Shannon was completely cut out of the movie.)

Maybe the oddest thing about this movie is that it was originally conceived by the hyperactive filmmaking duo of Neveldine & Taylor, best known for their debut Crank. After writing the script, they left the project and the directing slot was filled by an even more unconventional choice in Jimmy Hayward, whose last movie was the 20th Century Fox family hit Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who. Unfortunately, the production has been plagued with problems that have been well-reported on the internet, including having to do reshoots with director Francis Lawrence (who did that Constantine movie we mentioned earlier). After finishing the movie, the studio waited for a long time to start promoting the movie with the first trailer appearing less than two months ago with A Nightmare on Elm Street, which is a very short lead time for a summer release.

On top of that, the Western has had a troubling history at the box office in recent years with Warner Bros. famously being unable to sell Andrew Dominik's critically-acclaimed and highly-regarded The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, even though it starred Brad Pit and scored Casey Affleck (stars of this week's "Chosen One" The Killer Inside Me--see below) his first Oscar nomination. That movie only made $4 million, while a few months earlier, James Mangold's remake of 3:10 to Yuma pairing Russell Crowe and Christian Bale did decent business with $53 million. The latter was only one of 10 Westerns to gross more than $50 million and the real moneymakers were either Oscar winners (Dances With Wolves, The Unforgiven) or star-studded summer fare.

While Warner Bros. has had some success with unconventional comic adaptations, they've also had a number of bombs, most notably the long-delayed Whiteout, which grossed roughly $10 million. Their most recent attempt at a comic book movie was The Losers, also produced by Joel Silver, which tried to bring in the young male crowd with a similar mix of action and comedy but only grossed $23 million to date.

For better or worse, Warner Bros. went PG-13 on this one, probably as backlash to Watchmen making less than they hoped. While this might allow younger teens to see the movie, not like they may be interested, but it will be a turn-off to the 17 to 25 year old guys who would prefer a Jonah Hex movie to have the level of sex and violence and swearing one might expect from a movie written by Neveldine and Taylor. The commercials looks like it maintains their usual frenetic pace but that also makes the movie look a bit too much like The Wild, Wild West, one of Will Smith's most notorious summer bombs, rather than something that might appeal to older fans of Westerns. Another factor no one may have considered when they greenlit the movie is the possible influence of the hit video game "Red Dead Redemption" which has probably gotten more teen and older guys into the idea of Westerns than any movie.

Either way, this doesn't look like your father's Western, and in this case, that's a bad thing, since normally Father's Day on Sunday would be a great time to take Dad out to see a Western. While there's a good shot some fathers in the 30-40 range and even older may be familiar (or even fans) of the DC Comics Western series, it's doubtful they'd be very interested in a movie that looks like this.

As much as we've been looking forward to this movie, we have not heard very good things, and Warner Bros. has been giving the movie more low-key screenings than other recent genre flicks, possibly realizing that reviews are going to be uglier than Hex's facial scar. At least the movie has a short running time, shockingly so, as it's just 82 minutes long, which means theaters can get more screenings in, though it's doubtful the movie's going to have more than one print per theater. As we called it earlier in the summer, this is almost guaranteed to be one of the summer's big bombs.

Why I Should See It: Considering how great the comics are, Jonah Hex has the potential to be a wild action-packed Western filled with sex and violence...
Why Not: From what I've heard of the movie, that potential has been squandered.
Projections: $9 to 11 million opening weekend and roughly $25 million total.

Ok, the reviews are coming in, and they aren't so good. As I do put both bad and good, unless it's way out there, I will be putting most of the reviews up.

As I don't care what people say about Michael's performances or films, since I've heard bad about Hex, Blood Creek, Fish Tank, 300, Angel, to name a few, I will be watching Jonah Hex, hopefully a few times this weekend.

http://movies.ign.com/articles/109/1099747p1.html

Jonah Hex Review
Latest DC movie is more Wild Wild West than Weird Western Tale.
June 17, 2010
by Jim Vejvoda

Based on the DC Comics gunslinger, Jonah Hex follows the eponymous scar-faced bounty hunter (Josh Brolin) as he is enlisted by President Ulysses S. Grant (Aidan Quinn) and Lt. Grass (Will Arnett) to track down the terrorist Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), a former Confederate officer hellbent on destroying the U.S. government. Hex is already out for revenge against Turnbull for slaying his wife and child and leaving his face grotesquely disfigured. Now he can kick his ass for America, too!

Jonah Hex could have made for a hell of a movie if done well, but instead it turned out to be one hell of a mess. Its notorious reshoots aside, the film's clearly had a tomahawk taken to it in the cutting room resulting in a movie that, at a mere 81 minutes, is the epitome of barebones. This is a movie that apparently lacked a uniform vision from its inception of what it should be tonally. It's part spaghetti western, part supernatural tale, part action film, part black comedy and doesn't quite work as any of them.

Brolin brings a gruff charm as Hex, but as a movie character Hex is just like every other taciturn, cliche gunslinger anti-hero from countless spaghetti westerns save for his very cool makeup job. The actor never quite gets a bead on the role, but his innate coolness goes a long way in making you not walk out. Just don't expect to make out every line of dialogue he grumbles out through that facial prosthetic he's wearing.

Hex is obviously the character the film rightfully spends the most time with, but it relegates everyone else in it to being pretty much a thumbnail sketch. Indeed, Megan Fox (as Jonah's prostitute love interest Lilah) could have been cut out of the film entirely and it wouldn't have made a bit of difference as you never once believe Hex cares much about Lilah. Theirs is an uncomplicated relationship: he pays for sex with her while still brooding over the loss of his wife and child. (Hey, a man's got his needs.) Trying to make Lilah into a true love interest he needs to save just doesn't ring true here. Malkovich underplays Turnbull to the point of hardly registering any impact at all, while Michael Fassbender as his sinister henchman Burke deserves to be added to my list of Most Ridiculous Irish Villains. He's the Bullseye of this movie.

Blink and you might miss some of the other actors who pop up here and there, such as Oscar nominee Michael Shannon or former Dukes of Hazzard star Tom Wopat. Ditto Ghost Rider baddie Wes Bentley as an aristocratic Confederate sympathizer. Jeffrey Dean Morgan makes this his third DC Comics screen adaptation in an unbilled but decent cameo. Arnett plays it straight here, but there's ultimately no reason why he's in this movie; it's not like his character becomes either a help or a hindrance to Hex. Lance Reddick does what he can with his couple of scenes as a gunsmith ally of Hex's and largely makes it out of the movie with his dignity intact. But it's not like you really give a damn about anyone in the movie or what will happen next.

The choppy story – by the Crank team of Mark Neveldine & Brian Taylor – recycles the same basic plot of The Legend of the Lone Ranger and Wild Wild West where a nutty former Confederate seeks to avenge himself on the U.S. government. All three films have President Grant in a supporting role played by a notable character actor. And like Wild Wild West, the villain here uses an anachronistic super-weapon, a gimmick that's since been done to death in The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Sherlock Holmes. (Can Hollywood please retire this unsubtle and overused War on Terror metaphor now? We get it already.)

Jonah's supernatural power is one of the few things that make this movie different, even if its simply used as a narrative cheat for him to learn information. Unfortunately, the "one foot on earth, the other in hell" aspect of Jonah's story is just as half-baked as every other part of the movie. There are cutaways at one pivotal point to an otherworldly brawl between Hex and Turnbull that's simply unnecessary and confusing as it is juxtaposed with a "real world" battle that we're also supposed to be engaged in. You end up caring about neither struggle.

This may also be the loudest Western ever made. The deafening, over-the-top heavy metal score – which plays from the opening production company logos to the end credits – makes the film sound more like a Saw sequel than a Western. It's just trying too hard to be cool and to appeal to younger viewers. On the other hand, the movie boasts fine cinematography and nice attention to period detail in its production design and costumes. Too bad they're wasted on such an ADD storyline. While Jonah Hex has its moments, it's ultimately yet another disappointing comic book adaptation. It's a film born out of its time, belonging among the comic book movie dregs of the late '90s rather than in the genre's current renaissance.
Rating InfoRating Info
2.5 out of 5 Stars | 5/10

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/fast-paised-movies/2010/06/a-terrible-movie-and-a-stunningly-awful-one-jonah-hex-and-birdemic.html

A bad movie and a terrible, terrible one: 'Jonah Hex' and 'Birdemic'
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Matt Pais on 06.17.10 at 4:46 PM

At a glance, it seemed like "Jonah Hex" could have been good. Josh Brolin makes a great tough guy, and a supporting cast including John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender and Will Arnett is better than most comic book movies can boast. (As for the short and shorter turns by Wes Bentley and Michael Shannon, one question: Why?) And contrary to popular belief, Megan Fox's assets aren't just tied to her looks, as she proved in the otherwise irritating "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People."

No matter, though. "Jonah Hex" is so incoherent that the movie doesn't even seem to understand itself. There's no continuity or clarity or anything, just a random succession of badly filmed scenes that don't add up. Fortunately, Brolin and Fassbender are such pros that they make a decent amount of the movie watchable.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/17/1686676/jonah-hex.html

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-et-jonah-hex-20100618,0,2037457.story

Jonah Hex'

By BETSY SHARKEY
Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES -- There are few truths to be found in the smoldering ash heap that is "Jonah Hex," but here are the ones that matter: John Malkovich is responsible for the Fourth of July fireworks tradition (who knew?); Megan Fox looks better fighting in a bustier than tight white "Transformers" jeans (no-brainer); definitely consider a cosmetic surgeon to deal with those unsightly facial scars, don't get in a pique and try to do it yourself (duh).

This latest DC Comics transmogrification into mega-action mess stars Josh Brolin as Jonah, a bounty-hunting latter-day saint with an ax to grind and a face that even a mother couldn't love (see cosmetic surgery tip above). The film is director Jimmy Hayward's ("Horton Hears a Who!") first go at live action and there is promise in all the fire and brimstone raining down, just no soul in the souls the devil went down to Georgia for.

Set in the aftermath of the Civil War, "Jonah Hex" is an apocalypse story of betrayal and redemption that burns its way through D.C., the Deep South and the dusty West. The till-death-do-they-part battle between good and evil pits a renegade Confederate colonel named Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich) against a vengeance-hungry Jonah. At stake is more than old grudges - the very future of these newly united states hangs in the balance.

Basically Jonah shot Turnbull's son and some other Confederates who started blowing up civilians rather than Union soldiers. Not one to turn the other cheek, Turnbull murdered Jonah's family and seared his QT brand into Jonah's face as a reminder that he "destroyed everything you ever loved," or something like that. It's not easy to forget the sentiment because Malkovich delivers the line so many times you wonder if he just never got the script revisions.

Ah, the "script." Writers Neveldine & Taylor, who I gather aren't using their first names to protect their families' reps, have found a way to turn biblical references into bad dialogue at head-turning speed while making 83 minutes feel like a lifetime. I guess with "Crank" and "Crank: High Voltage" as a training ground, it was to be expected.

In the comic book tradition, the story weaves between the real and the mythical, but it's a very boozy trip. Brolin's intermittent voice-over narration proves to be the most powerful stuff, with the rest curiously sputtering. Case in point: Jonah's caustic one-liners fall dead because their target has already bitten the dust - it's just no fun if you can't see the guy react to being dissed before he's deceased.

The look of the film is great, though visually there are three distinctive streams that Hayward has trouble meshing. There is the stark graphic comic book style that is used to good effect in the beginning when Jonah is filling us in on why he's so mad. The style that dominates the film is a sort of spaghetti western wrapped in worn leather and dusted by grime, that is by far the best; and finally a surreal-scape of dry red river beds and scary dreams, which look evocative but are just not right for this movie.

Of course the biggest effect is Jonah's face, with half of it Brolin's ruggedly handsome scruff, the other a swirling crater of skin with a hole that exposes very bad dental hygiene. I guess it's a good thing that Fox's Lilah, a sharp-shooting hooker with a crush on Hex, didn't find it as distracting as I did, or some of the fights would have gone on even longer.

Malkovich, who does malevolence so well, is strangely flat as the villain. All would be lost without his No. 2, the devilish Michael Fassbender as a tattooed crazy Brit named Burke. He takes care of most of the hand-to-hand combat with Jonah and brings the fire needed to fuel the bad guys and inflame his adversaries.

That is not an inconsequential skill, since he who controls the fire controls the action in "Jonah Hex." Cities burn, people burn, circuses burn, boats burn. The government's secret new weapon of mass destruction that Turnbull has stolen and Jonah has been conscripted to recover is a molten sphere that turns ordinary cannonballs into great balls of fire. But this is one film even Jerry Lee Lewis couldn't save.

Betsy Sharkey: betsy.sharkey@latimes.com

JONAH HEX

MPAA rating: PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, disturbing images and sexual content

Running time: 1 hour, 23 minutes

Playing: In general release

http://chud.com/articles/articles/24121/1/REVIEW-JONAH-HEX/Page1.html

REVIEW: JONAH HEX

* By Devin Faraci
* Published Today

What a goddamned mess. Too slight to be memorably terrible, Jonah Hex is just 80 some odd minutes of bland, boring, tedious nonsense. Utterly inept and squandering potential at every opportunity, the only 'interesting' thing the film has going for it is an ending that is totally bizarro, terribly conceived and bafflingly stupid.

Based on the long-running DC Comics gunslinger, Jonah Hex is a movie without a real reason to exist. There are hints at what could have been a good film in there - ideas that never quite get followed up on, scenes that (on paper) could have been amazing - but mostly it's an aimless disaster, squashed into the shortest running time possible. It's hard for me to even come up with things to say about the film; edited down to the barest essentials required to have a basically coherent narrative, the movie feels out of breath and listless at the same time. How can something in such a hurry to get from scene to scene be going nowhere so fast?

Josh Brolin is miserable as the title character; burdened with a facial prosthetic that reduces most of his dialogue to mumbling, Brolin seems to have no feeling for who the character is. He's constantly struggling with the movie's tone - somewhere in the script is a balls-out, cartoony bit of over the top fun, but Brolin can't quite put his finger on it. He vacillates from grimly boring to silly, and the only reason why his performance isn't the film's worst is because Megan Fox and John Malkovich are in it as well.

I don't mind Fox the way so many do, but she's awful in this film. Part of that has to be blamed on the character she's called to play - a tough as nails prostitute with a heart of gold who suddenly becomes a subservient wench whenever Jonah Hex walks into the room. The film famously included massive reshoots, and I have to imagine that Fox's character of Lila got seriously f&%$#& up in the course of that. Whatever the case, Fox's performance is dismal and irritating, and even the sight of her in bloomers is useless because the film cakes her in filth and sweat most of the movie.

Malkovich, meanwhile, appears to be acting in this movie due to indentured servitude. He plays General Turnbull, a Confederate terrorist who killed Hex's family and scarred his face, wrongly thought dead who now has a set of stupid magical cannonballs with which he's going to blow up Washington DC. Malkovich barely even tries to give Turnbull a Confederate accent, and in more than one scene I didn't even notice he was on screen! It's as though Malkovich, ashamed of being in this film, is willing himself invisible. It's remarkable that an actor of such power should melt off screen so quietly.

Not everybody is terrible in Jonah Hex. Michael Fassbender is terrific as Turnbull's Irish right hand man, and he seems to get the tone that the movie needed in order to even hope to work. Fassbender understands that going big doesn't always mean going broad, and his character is the shining light of the film, the most fun person on screen. You're rooting for him to kill Hex and just take over the movie, delivering us from the horrific muddled mess of Brolin's performance.

But that isn't to be, and instead we're stuck with the other bland character. To make matters worse director Jimmy Hayward doesn't seem to understand the first thing about making a movie scene cool. On paper the idea of Jonah Hex stalking down the halls of a fort shooting guys with explosive crossbow bolts is awesome, so why is it so boring in execution? Again and again there are scenes where I could understand why someone would think this was cool -a guy popping out of a coffin to shoot Hex, and when the guy is killed he falls right back into the coffin - but Hayward never makes any of them come alive. The authorship of the film is complicated - Francis Lawrence came on to reshoot large chunks of the movie - but whoever was behind the camera failed time and again to take any of the ideas on display and make them work.

The biggest f&#! up of all comes at the end, so expect minor spoilers from here on out: in the final battle between Hex and Turnbull Hayward/Lawrence/the chimp making the decisions created a bizarre fourway set of cutaways. There's the final battle, which takes place on an ironclad. That's cut in with Megan Fox battling on the same ironclad. Then it's cut with an imaginary fist fight between Hex and Turnbull, which in turn is cut with yet another series of flashbacks to Hex's origin.

That's right, the final fist fight between Hex and Turnbull is crosscut with an imaginary fistfight between Hex and Turnbull. The idea here, shoddily introduced into the film earlier, is that when you're about to die you imagine yourself finishing up your life's business. Which makes no sense, as Hex is actively engaged in a fight with the same guy at the same time. It's confusing in the worst, most irritating way. You don't actually care what you're watching in the first place, and then you have to watch it twice. The imaginary duel is given a red psychedelic haze, and I'm sure someone has dropped the word 'Jodorowsky' to someone else about that bit. That person should be beaten.

Halfway through Jonah Hex I wanted to walk out. Not because it was unwatchable but because I just didn't care. It was a nice day outside and I couldn't think of a single reason why I would keep watching the film except that I was obligated for work. The movie has obviously been hacked to the bone, but I doubt that a director's cut (whichever director gets the cut!) would make a difference, unless they cut out all the scenes where the actors did good acting, or all the scenes where the filmmakers made the action thrilling or interesting. Jonah Hex feels like a movie that nobody understood when they made it, that nobody cared about when they edited it, and that nobody wants to be associated with when they release it. It's a turd from top to bottom, and it doesn't even have the decency to be an interesting or an infuriating turd. It's the kind of movie that doesn't even really pass the time, since it's only 70 minutes or so without the end credits. A ticket to Jonah Hex on a hot summer day wouldn't even be worth it for the time spent in air conditioning.

2 out of 10

http://www.comingsoon.net/news/reviewsnews.php?id=67111

Jonah Hex
Reviewed by: Joshua Starnes
Rating: 3 out of 10

Cast:
Josh Brolin as Jonah Hex
John Malkovich as Quentin Turnbull
Megan Fox as Tallulah 'Lilah' Black
Michael Fassbender as Burke
Will Arnett as Lieutenant Grass
Lance Reddick as Smith
John Gallagher, Jr. as Lieutenant Evan
Tom Wopat as Colonel Slocum
Wes Bentley as Adelman Lusk
Aidan Quinn as Ulysses S. Grant
Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Blake

Review:
The mark of a good actor isn't being good in a good movie. That's easy; the elements are all there already. The mark of a good actor is being good in a really bad movie. Josh Brolin is a really, really good actor, because most of the time he's on screen speaking you can almost forget what a loathsome, irredeemable, turd of a film "Jonah Hex" is.

Jonah Hex (Brolin) was just your ordinary good old Confederate soldier. You know the kind who didn't hold with slavery or secessionism, but for some reason feels compelled to fight for the Confederacy anyway. Right up till they start doing some really despicable things; then he turns on his fellow soldiers, getting many of them killed in the process including his best friend. That's an act his commanding officer (John Malkovich) just can't abide--plus he was said best friends dad--and after the war he tracks Hex down and exacts his revenge, leaving him scarred, destitute, and with a heart full of hate.

Personally I always felt like Clint Eastwood already did a good version of Jonah Hex (whether he realized it or not) in "The Outlaw Josey Wales" and the "Hex" filmmakers must have thought so too, because they've lifted a few conventions from it for their origin. This Hex was also a Confederate soldier who is left scarred and ruined in an act of vengeance after the war. This being a Hollywood summer film, no one's prepared for the moral conundrum of having a hero who fought for slavery.

So instead we get introductory exposition tying itself into a yoga-master worthy pretzel to explain how he wasn't a bad Confederate, he picked them arbitrarily and has no problem working hard to save the country later. None of which would be necessary if they didn't insist on having him wear a Confederate Army outfit for the ENTIRE FILM.

Originally slated to be written and directed by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor ("Crank," "Gamer"), they left the project before filming over 'creative differences' but the effects of their grubby little fingers are still obvious in all of this atrocity.

These are the guys who think there's no such thing as too over the top, which is how we get a film with repeat action dynamite crossbows and President Grant (Aidan Quinn) offering Hex a job as Sheriff of the United States, a concept so stupid even the characters in the film have to comment on it.

And that is apparently the stuff they put a lot of thought into. Despite having said dynamite crossbow, plus a dual Gatling gun rig he can sling on his horse, that's not enough so they've given him supernatural powers as well. Thanks to his brush with death he can now speak to the dead by touching them, but he can only do so briefly as being out of the ground causes dead people to burn in pain. Don't ask about that part.

In fact 'don't think about it' is probably the best advice you could take into a viewing of "Jonah Hex" should you be so unfortunate as to see it. That includes the rapid-fire canon with glowing balls of death the evil Trumbull plans to use to destroy Washington during Independence Day festivities. Somewhere, Sergio Leone's corpse just started crying.

May be its for the best that way, as the stuff they do seem to think is clever and have thought about is even worse. In order to drive home the point that Hex wasn't REALLY fighting in defense of slavery, his only friend is the black gunsmith (Lance Reddick), conveniently named Smith, who builds his weapons. I'll leave you to work that particular little gem out on your own.

The thought seems to be to just continually throw a whirlwind of sh*t at the viewer to keep them continually off balance so they don't notice how badly the seams show. Despite spending a good amount of time at the front explaining how Trumbull died in a hotel fire, robbing Hex of his vengeance and turning him into a bitter loner, not five minutes pass before he shows up again in what passes for dramatic tension in the film.

That's not the only, or even, most glaring narrative problem in "Jonah Hex" as it takes the expedient of jumping right from beginning to end with no middle. Hex is accosted by the US military to find the missing super weapon and stop Trumbull, and with a minimum of fuss presumes to do so. Actually, this might not be a flaw, as it means there's that much less of it we're forced to endure.

For the most part, I can't fault director Jimmy Hayward ("Horton Hears a Who!") for this, though I feel like I should. Coming onto his first live-action film, that was already well on its way, he is completely out of his depths here. A more experienced director could have taken what Neveldine & Taylor left for him and produced something worthwhile out of it, but that's a task that seems beyond Hayward.

The only, only redeeming feature in "Jonah Hex" is Brolin himself. He really does embody Hex, from snarling, surly one-liners to the odd glimpse of real feeling that occasionally shines through. Hex doesn't particularly like the man he's become and it does bother him, but there doesn't seem to be much he can do about it. One scene where he confronts the dead best friend (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) he betrayed and killed is so poignant it almost makes up for the pain you have to deal with to get there. It is a travesty of the first order that Brolin's performance is wasted in this film.

Everyone else is much closer to "Jonah Hex's" level. Malkovich is as over the top as only Malkovich can be, Michael Fassbender is ridiculous as his right hand man, and Megan Fox is left with nothing to do but sit in her bordello and sweat until the film's final minutes. Which is probably for the best, because the small amount of screen time she does share with Brolin makes it impossible to ignore the nearly 20 year age difference between them.

Brolin is certainly capable of making the "Jonah Hex" character work, but no one else seems to be on the same page. The worst comic book film since "Catwoman," "Jonah Hex" is an extended, accidental detour into camp that would make Joel Schumacher blush. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go burn myself with a red-hot Tomahawk to remove the memory of this film from my mind.

http://www.filmcritic.com/reviews/2010/jonah-hex/

Jonah Hex
Reviewed by Chris Cabin on Jun 17 2010

Chris Cabin

It must be said from the outset that, although its negative aspects staggeringly outweigh its positive ones, Jimmy Hayward's neo-Western Jonah Hex never wears out its welcome. While other big-studio productions released thus far this summer have been falsely touted as "quick, stupid fun," Jonah Hex, based on the DC Comics series created by John Albano and Tony Dezuniga, is at the very least agile and fully aware of its own shortcomings.

Screenwriters Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor have given us a handful of recent ultra-violent micro-actioners (Gamer, the Crank films) and Jonah Hex shares a similar unhinged, rampaging sense of storytelling. Within the first five minutes of the film, the titular confederate-deserter-turned-bounty-hunter (Josh Brolin) has helped in the execution of his best friend, watched his family and home burned to the ground and has been branded by his erstwhile commanding officer, General Turnbull (John Malkovich).

An empty stomach in need of revenge unleashes Hex from Hell with the newfound ability to talk to the dead, as he roams the South in the wake of the Civil War. Turnbull seeks a mega-ton canon-cum-rocket-launcher -- designed by Eli Whitney, no less -- which causes Hex to make temporary amends with President Grant (Aidan Quinn) in the hopes of hunting down the General and his Brit henchman Burke (the great Michael Fassbender, completely wasted) before a Fourth of July celebration. Beset by nightmarish visions, traitors, and a very willing prostitute played by Megan Fox, Hex races after Turnbull, arriving at an underwhelming climactic battle on a U-boat.

Edited with a meth-head's sense of pacing and shot during what seems like a bad peyote trip, Jonah Hex has the good sense to never even attempt to take its scenario, characters, or creation seriously. The love story is a joke; the violence is bloodless and morally unencumbered; the politics are rusty, uncomplicated and regularly expressed. In its way, Jonah Hex consolidates the truly trashy parts of clunkers like The A-Team, The Losers and (God help me) Clash of the Titans that have been needlessly gussied up in Hollywood structure to look like something slightly more presentable.

Strewn with clutch supporting players (Will Arnett, Lance Reddick and Wes Bentley to name three), the mess director Jimmy Hayward has slapped on the screen is infinitely preferable to those other films, though it's also completely forgettable in its refreshing unpretentiousness. If Neveldine, Taylor, or Hayward could summon any sort of technical efficiency, they might be able to produce something like the wild, cheap thrills of Nimrod Antal. With Jonah Hex, however, their cumulative recklessness is their sole asset.

http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117942975.html?categoryId=31&cs=1

Posted: Thurs., Jun. 17, 2010, 11:30am PT

New U.S. Release
Jonah Hex
By JUSTIN CHANG

Megan Fox and Josh Brolin star in Warner Bros.' adaptation of the DC Comics property 'Jonah Hex.'

'Jonah Hex' opens nationwide Friday, June 18.

A Warner Bros. release presented in association with Legendary Pictures of a Mad Chance/Weed Road production. Produced by Akiva Goldsman, Andrew Lazar. Executive producers, Ravi Mehta, Thomas Tull, Jon Jashni, William Fay, Matt LeBlanc, John Goldstone. Co-producers, Richard Middleton, Miri Yoon, Margot Lulick. Directed by Jimmy Hayward. Screenplay, Neveldine & Taylor; story, William Farmer, Neveldine & Taylor, based on comicbooks written by John Albano, illustrated by Tony DeZuniga, published by DC Comics.

Jonah Hex - Josh Brolin
Quentin Turnbull - John Malkovich
Lilah - Megan Fox
Burke - Michael Fassbender
Lt. Grass - Will Arnett
President Grant - Aidan Quinn

Unlikely to be remembered as one of Warner Bros.' more illustrious DC Comics properties, "Jonah Hex" casts a weak spell. An ultra-stylish attempt to spin the gunslinging bounty hunter from a little-known 1970s comicbook series into the stuff of movie myth, this supernatural neo-Western actioner earns some distinction by virtue of its grungy post-Civil War settings and offbeat casting. But "Jonah" was a risky proposition to begin with, and the film's noisy, slam-bang approach and lack of imagination in all nonvisual departments will keep it from rounding up a fresh generation of thrill-seekers.

It doesn't inspire confidence to discover that the filmmakers went to the trouble of mounting a costly and elaborate production to introduce an unsung antihero to a overcrowded comicbook-movie market, only to end the pic at a mere 81 minutes (including closing credits). While the door is left open for a sequel, it's hard to imagine a studio or an audience getting terribly excited about the prospect after such a numbing pyrotechnic display in service of a perfunctory revenge saga -- one that happens to be set on the troubled eve of America's centennial.

Amid a series of rapid dissolves and crude 2D animation, the prologue finds Confederate soldier Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) strung up and forced to watch as his wife and child are murdered by his commanding officer, Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich, adding to his gallery of one-note evildoers). Fanatically devoted to the South's cause, Turnbull proceeds to brand his initials into Jonah's cheek, leaving a painful, permanent reminder of the soldier's inner torment.

Years later, Jonah has become a bounty hunter, a brooding, embittered loner who does most of his talking through the barrel of an 1873 Colt (or via the Gatling guns conveniently attached to his horse) and reserves his sole interpersonal exchanges for a fetching young prostitute, Lilah (Megan Fox). But when Jonah learns that Turnbull, presumed dead but very much alive, is planning to launch a cataclysmic attack on the Union, he makes it his mission to save the nation and settle the score.

This gives rise to the tale's most striking narrative innovation, as Jonah gleans key information by communicating with the dead -- a gift he demonstrates in a series of ghoulish yet oddly poignant interludes with talking corpses (expertly rendered by the f/x and makeup teams). It's one of the few memorable touches in a picture that -- despite numerous opportunities for clever historical revisionism and visual artistry (some of which are realized in Tom Meyer's sun-drenched production design and Michael Wilkinson's spot-on costumes) -- ultimately favors the expedient and the explosive at every turn.

This should come as little surprise, given that "Jonah Hex" was scripted by Brian Neveldine and Mark Taylor (the writing-directing duo behind "Gamer" and the "Crank" movies), who were originally slated to direct before exiting the project, citing creative differences. While the helming reins were handed over to animation maven Jimmy Hayward ("Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who!"), it's the signature of Neveldine & Taylor (as they're billed here) that remains most evident in the film's shotgun wedding of oater iconography and videogame aesthetics -- all smash edits, feverish cross-cutting, color-saturated lensing and a thunderous heavy-metal score -- as well as its fusion of old-fashioned artillery and futuristic weaponry.

Given the relative paucity of Westerns on the current moviegoing landscape, it's somewhat dispiriting to encounter a movie that would painstakingly erect a facade of 19th-century mining towns, military forts and runaway locomotives (pic was lensed primarily in Louisiana), only to blow every one of those sets to yawn-inducing smithereens -- all presided over by Malkovich's leering megalomaniac, hamming it up like some kind of Southern Bond villain ("Ahhhm the detonat-uh!").

Brolin has shown a natural affinity for material with a Western bent (whether it's "No Country for Old Men" or, presumably, the Coen brothers' upcoming "True Grit" remake), and he's well cast as the tortured central figure, even if the script never allows him the time or the scale to make Jonah Hex much more than an anguished character sketch. Thesp is forced to grunt and scowl through one side of his mouth, thanks to that convincingly gruesome prosthetic scar, which makes some of his gravelly voiceover unintelligible.

While Fox is adequate as a whore packing plenty of heat in her corset, the unusual supporting cast is an embarrassment of underutilized riches: Michael Fassbender makes a memorable impression as Turnbull's nasty No. 2, while Michael Shannon is almost unrecognizable as a fiendish carnival impresario. Elsewhere, Aidan Quinn, Wes Bentley and Will Arnett (in a rare noncomedic role) register far too fleetingly.

Camera (Technicolor, Panavision widescreen), Mitchell Amundsen; editors, Fernando Villena, Tom Lewis; music, Marco Beltrami, Mastodon; production designer, Tom Meyer; supervising art director, Seth Reed; art directors, Johnny Jos, Jonah Markowitz; set designers, Jane Wuu, Ryan Heck, Randy D. Wilkins, Daniel R. Jennings; set decorator, Robert Greenfield; costume designer, Michael Wilkinson; sound (Dolby Digital/DTS/SDDS), Richard Schexnayder; supervising sound editors/sound designers, Jeremy Peirson, Craig Henighan; re-recording mixers, Peirson, Gregory H. Watkins; visual effects supervisor, Ariel Velasco Shaw; visual effects, Hydraulx, Soho VFX, Pixel Magic; associate producer, Josh Levinson; assistant director, Milos Milicevic; second unit director, Steven Ritzi; casting, Bernard Telsey. Reviewed at Warner Bros. Studios, Burbank, June 16, 2010. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 81 MIN.

With: John Gallagher Jr., Tom Wopat, Michael Shannon, Wes Bentley.

http://www.azcentral.com/thingstodo/movies/articles/2010/06/17/20100617jonah-hex.html

Jonah Hex' 1half stars

by Bill Goodykoontz - Jun. 17, 2010 07:48 AM
The Arizona Republic

Take the intriguing premise of a punk-rock Western based on a graphic novel, populate it with a good cast, add striking visuals and you come up with . . . a real mess.
'Jonah Hex'

Bomb to bad: 1 half star

Director: Jimmy Hayward.

Cast: Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich.

Rating: Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action, disturbing images and sexual content.

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"Jonah Hex" somehow manages to waste the talents of Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, Aidan Quinn and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in a story that combines vengeance, the occult and an Old West war on terror (really). What director Jimmy Hayward was up to is hard to say; the film has the incomplete feel of something snatched from his hands before he was done with it (it's only 80 minutes long).

Or maybe he got confused himself and quit trying. Whatever the case, "Jonah Hex" plays like an extended music video or a middling episode of "The Wild, Wild West." Either way, it's not much of a movie. There are some good bits, particularly a scene in which Brolin and Morgan face off in the eerie dark of a cemetery. But instead of a real narrative, the story, such as it is, just sort of lurches along from one fight to another.

Jonah Hex (Brolin) was a soldier fighting for the South in the Civil War, though he didn't believe in its (or any other) cause. A natural killer but appalled at the senseless violence meted out by his commanding officer, a sadistic nut case named Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich), Hex eventually defies him, killing his son (Morgan) in the process.

Turnbull retaliates by killing Hex's wife and child, making him watch, and branding his face, leaving a scar with a hole in it, all the better for shots of whiskey to dribble out of. (Despite this seeming hindrance, Hex is still able to be a drunk.) Hex almost dies, but doesn't, quite. His ordeal leaves him able to communicate with the dead, who are none too happy to be bothered. Who can blame them?

So far, so OK. After years as a bounty hunter, friend to no one but the industrious prostitute Lilah (Megan Fox), Hex is called back into service by President Ulysses S. Grant (Quinn). It seems Turnbull, ever crazier, has acquired and assembled a weapon of mass destruction and means to use it. He's a stone-cold terrorist, swearing oaths against the newly restored Union; all that's missing are cable-news networks to broadcast his rants to a terrified populace, and talking heads to complain about what's not being done to stop him. This is all doubtless meant to be some sort of commentary on life as we now live it, but like the rest of the film, it never really goes anywhere.

A chase ensues, but it feels compressed, rushed. All of a sudden we're at the climax, which is muddied into incomprehension by needless flashbacks set in Hex's subconscious, which is as confusing as that sounds.

You can't help but believe there was promise here at some point during development. Brolin is always worth watching, though he mostly sneers through the hole in his cheek. Malkovich does not, shall we say, underplay a showy role. Fassbender is actually quite fun as a psychopathic henchman of Turnbull's, almost dancing with glee as he kills. Fox is Fox, with all the good (looks) and bad (acting) that implies. Hayward creates some gorgeous shots of desert sky, threatening clouds and such.

But it adds up to nearly nothing. Did they run out of money? Time? Patience? Or did they just film a story that wasn't ready to go in front of the camera? Whatever the case, "Jonah Hex" is far less than the sum of its parts.

http://www.piquenewsmagazine.com/pique/index.php?cat=C_Columns&content=Notes+1724

First up at the Village 8 this week, Jonah Hex, an adaptation of the popular occult-western comic book. Director Jimmy Hayward (Horton Hears a Who) has assembled an all-star cast of Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Will Arnet and Michael Fassbender to bring life to the story of a bounty hunter with a grudge (and horse-mounted gatling guns) out to save the world or something. There were no pre-screenings for this one and the kids on the internet are claiming "boring" and "meanders" but I'm going to check it out anyhow because Jonah Hex has a dynamite-stick crossbow and heavy metal band Mastodon did the score. Also Megan Fox, recently fired from Transformers 3, stars as a gun-toting prostitute (the best kind really). Go with low expectations.

http://www.examiner.com/x-39595-Cleveland-Film-Examiner~y2010m6d17-Movie-openings-for-June-18-2010

Jonah Hex: Every bit of news released about this film has been either unbelievable cool and crushingly lame. James Brolin was tapped for the lead role. Then Megan Fox was added to the cast. Neveldine/Taylor, the amazing writer/director team behind Crank and Gamer were hired to script and direct the film. Then they left the project due to "creative differences" having only written the film's script. John Malkovich and Michael Fassbender were added as Hex's villains. Jimmy Hayward (Horton Hears a Who), the film's eventual director had to "consult" with Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) on studio mandated reshoots. Heavy Metal gods Mastodon are providing a score for the film. And finally, to swing the pendulum deep into lame, the first trailer was released and boy was it awful. In few years, someone is going to do an interview with Brolin and he'll can the film his Wild Wild West. You can put money on that. Also starring Michael Shannon, Will Arnett, and Lance Reddick.

Fun Fact: According to IMDB, Brolin broke and "repaired" Malkovich's thumb while shooting a scene, which, perspective awfulness of the picture aside, is awesome.

http://blogs.wweek.com/news/2010/06/16/why-so-down-in-the-mouth-pardner-jonah-hex-reviewed/

Why So Down in the Mouth, Pardner?: Jonah Hex Reviewed

11:02 PM June 16th, 2010 by Aaron Mesh

The Josh Brolin paranormal kinda-Western wasn’t screened for critics until tonight, but here’s a review.

Jonah Hex

WW Critic’s Score: 28

The closing credits of Jonah Hex will tell you that Michael Shannon, the terrific sneerer from Revolutionary Road and The Runaways, is the fifth-billed actor in the movie. Having sat through the 80 minutes that precede these credits, I will tell you that Shannon manifests for exactly one three-second shot, barks a line as a circus ringmaster, then disappears. At least I don’t think he shows up again. The film is very aggressively edited, and I blinked from time to time. I would say Shannon was the lucky one, but the other performers in Jonah Hex don’t seem to have put in very long days either. On evidence, we know Josh Brolin had to sit in a makeup chair long enough to have a wattle of burnt flesh stuck to the right side of his mouth.

A comic book halfheartedly applied to the medium of cinema, Jonah Hex plays like the introductory montage for the Red Dead Redemption video game—only not nearly as good. It is not even a Western: Most of it takes place in the former Confederate states shortly after the Civil War. At least I think it’s the South. There are magnolias, and red clay, but sometimes there are also deserts. Either some geography is happening here that I don’t know about, or Brolin’s horse is putting in some phenomenal work. Anyway, I’m quibbling: The important point is that it’s about as authentically Southern as a plate of Chili’s Honey-Chipotle Chicken Crispers.

Brolin plays a former Johnny Reb who got very close to the grave, and thus is on speaking terms with the occupants. Not a bad conceit, but in execution it means that Jonah Hex is sometimes a supernatural horror show, other times an oater, and always in a godawful hurry to get to the next thing—so much of a hurry that the climactic fight scene is spliced with another, imaginary fight scene that director Jimmy Hayward hopes we might find more interesting. This movie doesn’t know where it is. It doesn’t know what it is. It barely exists.

The cinematography is richly saturated, and the special effects budget large enough to smear a digital sheen on Megan Fox’s face and provide a crow popping out of Brolin’s mouth, but the expense of shooting the performers long enough to finish a sentence was apparently too much to bear. And here is where the influence of comic books and music videos is tangibly degrading cinema: Bad movies are now so stylized and chopped that there’s no room for actors to hijack them. John Malkovich is around, in amazingly bad curls, Inglourious Basterd Michael Fassbender has neck tattoos, and Will Arnett is an Army lieutenant, but all of them are chopped to ribbons by four editors. Or maybe Jonah Hex’s badness signifies nothing more than its own badness: The picture has four editors, for pity’s sake. It’s as if they were trying to cut the thing out of being. But that they had succeeded. PG-13.

http://www.sinfronterasfilmfestival.com/jonah-hex-revenge-gets-ugly.htm

Jonah Hex: Revenge Gets Ugly
Posted by Bhakti | June 18th, 2010 in Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Warner Bross
JONAH HEX MOVIE 2010

# Release Date: June 18th, 2010
# Starring: Megan Fox, Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett
# Director: Jimmy Hayward
# Writer: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor, William Farmer, John Albano, Tony Dezuniga
# Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
# Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi, Western
# Official Site: jonah-hex.warnerbros.com

Josh Brolin, Megan Fox and John Malkovich. Three reasons to keep track of ‘Jonah Hex’, the film adaptation of comic book created by John Albano and Tony DeZuniga. We had discussed this project before, which now is in the process of shooting, and that the idea of a western with fantasy and horror touch it seems, a priori, very interesting. Speaking of interesting … here you are the first pictures of the filming, all turning in the leading actress, Miss Fox, that some of the pictures looks a sea of hot dress. It is clear that they have not hired for his acting ability, if there was any doubt.

The film, which is being directed by Jimmy Hayward, revolves around a bounty hunter chasing a magician, an expert in voodoo magic, which plans to release the Southern United States through an army of undead. Brolin plays the title gunman, whose face is deformed in the manner of Two-Face (to see how they overcome the ‘The Dark Knight), Malkovich Fox the evil sorcerer and the girl on duty, which in this case also can shoot Hex and help in his mission.

Will Arnett, Michael Fassbender and Michael Shannon (nominated for an Oscar for her role as “crazy” in ‘Revolutionary Road’) is also involved in the film whose premiere is scheduled for June 18th, 2010.

http://cocoacritic.blogspot.com/2010/06/movie-review-jonah-hex.html

Thursday, June 17, 2010
Movie Review: Jonah Hex

This film was a mess from start to finish. Truth be told after watching a couple snippets of Jonah Hex at Comic-Con, I didn’t think it would be great in the first place. Main reason for the terrible-ness? MEGAN FOX. But all the blame does not fall upon her shoulders. Everything about his movie was just bad, bad, bad. Hex could go down as one of THE worst comic-book adaptations ever, even worse than the 1990 version of Captain America. Yes, that bad.

What I find amusing is that Josh Brolin wanted Megan Fox in this film. Now, was it because he truly believed she was a good actress, or was it simply because he wanted eye-candy to swoon over him during the film shoot? I’m thinking it’s the latter. Because any person with a lick of sense surely realizes Fox cannot act and if they didn’t, they know now. But back to Brolin, he wasn’t terrible in this, but he wasn’t his usual good-self either. Maybe it’s because he watched the dailies.

Michael Fassbender, whom I love from the TV series Hex and Inglourious Basterds annoyed me. He was way over the top and I couldn’t wait for someone to put a bullet in his head. Unfortunately his death didn’t come soon enough. Malkovich, another thespian whom I’ve enjoyed over the years, put on a campy performance. Again, maybe he watched the dailies as well. Or maybe he was just doing this for a pay-check. Who nows? It general, it really felt like no one really gave a fig about this film.

As far as Fox’s presentation in this, it was very flat for the simple fact she cannot connect with another actor, at least not with Brolin. A skill not needed when running from giant robots; chemistry was required here. Unfortunately, Brolin and Fox had none.

Were there any good bits? Well, I did enjoy the sequences where Hex revived a dead body to interrogate it and the motion comic opening was pretty bad ass. If only the entire movie was that way.

Who I felt bad for was Aidan Quinn. What was the last good thing he’s been in?

Ah well. Thus continues the onslaught of mediocre to terrible comic-book adaptations.

Jonah Hex. 0 out of 10.
Posted by Cocoacritic at 4:11 PM

http://www.brandsonly.nl/moviesmovies/?p=6960

Review – Jonah Hex

“Jonah Hex” isn’t necessarily a bad film, it’s just nothing at all. Oh, there’s plenty wrong with this big screen adaptation of the DC Comics western hero, but it’s hard to stay angry with the film when the fingerprints of studio intervention are all over this movie, which has been whittled down to a scant 74 minutes in length. It’s hard to accomplish anything richly cinematic in 74 minutes, much less create a persuasive adventure for a character who’s been kicking around the world of funny books since 1972.

Turning on his psychotic superior Turnbull (John Malkovich) during the Civil War, Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) was rewarded with the murder of his family and Turnbull’s brand burned across his cheek. Left for dead, Hex survived due to the resuscitative efforts of the local Native Americans, who gifted the disfigured gunslinger the ability to speak with the dead.

Now a nomad bounty hunter, Hex is called back into military duty by President Grant (Aidan Quinn) when it’s clear Turnbull is once again up to no good, assembling a doomsday weapon capable of destroying America on the eve of its centennial celebration. Off to slaughter the man that ruined his life, Hex finds a distraction in saloon whore Lilah (Megan Fox), the one person to find a soul within the scarred killing machine.

Perhaps handing a gruff, violent comic book icon to the director of “Horton Hears a Who” wasn’t the best idea in the world. Jimmy Hayward is clearly out of his element with this picture, unable to plainly communicate the necessary information it takes to build a simplistic story of revenge, villainy, and mass destruction. Actually, Hayward has the destruction part down pretty well, since most of “Jonah Hex” is devoted to overkill explosions, trying to keep the audience awake while the meat cleaver editing mangles the story past a point of recognition.

There appears to be much more to the world of “Jonah Hex” than this movie lets on, with the studio shaving the final product down to basic elements of violence, sex appeal (oddly, Fox’s face has been digitally smoothed out for reasons unknown), and scenery-chewing performances. The entire mythology of Hex has been lost in the hasty cutting, leaving behind a teeth-rattling bore that never lifts off the ground.

Of course, I’m merely assuming the studio went crazy reining in the final cut of “Jonah Hex.” After all, the screenplay is credited to Neveldine/Taylor, the gentlemen behind the intolerable “Crank” franchise and “Gamer.” Seeing how the twosome have refused all opportunities to tell a coherent story before, perhaps “Jonah Hex” is intentionally distracted, blurring past bizarre mystical behavior that has our hero conversing with the dead (using dirt to “cool” the corpses down before Hell comes calling), or envisioning his final fight with Turnbull in acid-trip hues before he ever has a chance to sock it to the bloated bad guy in person. It’s never outright confusing, but the script is just vague enough to keep Hex a total question mark all the way through to the end credits.

The grimacing bright spot here is Brolin, who’s well cast as the half-dead hero, attempting to spit atrocious lines past his mouth-sealing facial makeup. Brolin has the swagger for Hex and the cowboy knowhow, but his charms can’t slap the movie awake, though he earns a participant ribbon just for enduring some of the more hopeless ideas here, most merging Old West traditions with borderline sci-fi touches.

Malkovich is Malkovich, sleepwalking through his villain role, but the real curiosity is Megan Fox. Prominently billed in the marketing, Fox only hangs around the picture for maybe 10 minutes tops, long enough to purr her own set of awful dialogue and display her tightly corseted figure. In the end, there’s no reason for her character to even exist in the screenplay.

Despite nanosecond cameos from a host of semi-famous faces (including Will Arnett, Michael Fassbender, Wes Bentley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Michael Shannon, and Tom Wopat), “Jonah Hex” never gets up to a full gallop, instead lurching from beat to beat minus necessary connective tissue to make the mayhem matter. Glossy and gutted, “Jonah Hex” turns the cowboy with a melted mouth into a grunting moviegoing chore. But at least it’s a ridiculously short chore.

http://cucumovies.blogspot.com/2010/06/review-jonah-hex.html

Thursday, June 17, 2010
Review: Jonah Hex
Grade: D-

Jonah Hex was a civil war soldier fighting for the confederacy but informing on them to the North. When his general, Quentin Turnball, finds out, he kills Jonah’s family in front of him then burns the side of his face. Jonah almost died but was brought back by a Sioux Indian medicine man. As a result, Jonah gained other worldly powers; he can talk to the dead by simply touching them. When Hex hears that Turnball is dead, he decides to take up bounty hunting for a living. One day, it is discovered that Turnball faked his own death and is currently building a weapon capable of reducing nations to rubble. The president calls on Jonah Hex to find Turnball and stop him before he attacks Washington D.C. on the countries Centennial celebration.

Well, after seeing this movie I completely understand why Warner Brothers have all but completely ignored that this movie was coming out. They hardly advertised for it and they didn’t even submit it for ratings until about a week or so before its release. This movie is, simply put, not good. It is obvious that they rushed the story because it is uninteresting and feels pretty forced. Also, you can tell that the actors really didn’t care about the roles they were playing as it really seemed like they were just reciting the lines given to them. The only positive I can think of for this movie right now is its runtime of just 80 minutes. So shortly after it starts, it is already almost over.

The cast is the reason I actually though this movie was going to be decent, too bad they let me down. Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men, Milk) played the titular role of Jonah Hex. Hex is actually a very interesting character and this could have been a really fun and new take on westerns and Brolin could have been great in this movie. Brolin wasn’t necessarily bad in this movie, the writing was, and he can’t help that. John Malkovich (Burn After Reading, Being John Malkovich) played the main villain in the movie, Quentin Turnball. What I said about Brolin goes for Malkovich too, he can’t help that the writing for his character was terribly cliché and just plain bad at times. Megan Fox (Transformers, Jennifer’s Body) plays a prostitute, Lilah, the only friend Jonah seems to have. Fox has never been a talented actress and the only thing she’s good for in this movie is something to look at. The rest of the cast includes Will Arnett, Michael Fassbender, Micahel Shannon, Wes Bently, Julia Jones and Aidan Quinn.

I definitely have to say skip this one, or if you really want to see it, wait for DVD. I really think that the only good part about this movie is that it is so short.
Posted by Michael Cuculich at 11:18 AM

http://tvandmoviereviews.com/tv-and-movie-reviews-presents-megan-fox-in-jonah-hex/

TV and Movie Reviews presents Megan Fox in Jonah Hex

http://tvandmoviereviews.com/6172010 movies trailers and more

TV and Movie Reviews is talking Jonah Hex with Megan Fox, hitting the big screen on June 18th

Here’s the story….The U.S. military makes a scarred bounty hunter with warrants on his own head an offer he cannot refuse: in exchange for his freedom, he must stop a terrorist who is ready to unleash Hell on Earth….Here’s whose in it….Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich and Michael Fassbender. Rated PG- 13..maybe not for the younger kiddies.

Megan Fox in a recent interview indicated she was taught byher father how to use a gun at age five. TV and Movie Reviews says “Let’s go to the movies” and see Megan Fox!

Directed by Jimmy Hayward and set to hit theaters on June 18,2010. we have Jonah Hex with Megan Fox

We at TV and Movie Reviews says this will be wicked cool..Check out the movie trailer for Jonah Hex presented by TV and Movie Reviews

Written by TV and Movie Reviews movies trailers and more

http://blogs.endonline.com/gavin/2010/06/16/jonah-hex/


Posted by Gavin on June 16, 2010
Jonah Hex
Posted in: Action

For those of you who love it when comic book movies come out and blow the socks off you like Iron Man or The Dark Knight, you have to know that it comes at a price. What cost do we have to pay for such fun at the cinemas? It’s called Jonah Hex. This represents many, many, many subpar, horrible, unknown comic books and graphic novels that movie studios have gobbled up in hopes of cashing in on the next big thing. At this point you can guarantee that Batman or X-Men will bring in a crowd but movies like 300 prove that you never know when one that no one has ever heard of outside the geeky basements of comic book fans will make hundreds of millions of dollars. The movie studio that bought the rights to DC Comics’ John Albano and Tony DeZuniga comic, Jonah Hex, knew somewhere during filming that this was not going to be “the next big thing.” That’s why they cut the film down to such a short runtime that I can’t remember the last live-action, non-children’s movie I saw that was this short. It came in at about 75 minutes long, which still, AMAZINGLY, dragged. Even more amazing than that though was the number of respectable actors they got to agree to be in this crap. Not just respectable, but actors associated with Oscars! Josh Brolin (No Country for Old Men, W) plays the title character and he’s joined by John Malkovic (In the Line of Fire, Being John Malkovic), Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road, Bug) who has two freaking lines, Wes Bentley (American Beauty), Michael Fassbender (Inglorious Basterds), Will Arnet (30 Rock, Blades of Steel) and Megan Fox…okay maybe not everyone is so impressive. How did this happen? The production value seems relatively high considering it’s a period piece that takes place right after The Civil War. But the script is as disfigured as Jonah Hex’s face. The direction is from Jimmy Hayward who is also from good stock. He was from the ranks of Pixar and this was his first live action film. It was almost as if the movie was made and the studio had zero faith in it, so they sliced and diced it until it was a puny 75 minutes, cut their losses and shoved it out there. I’m not going to say it’s a shame that this happened though. This was an example of a movie that probably should have stayed on the pages of the comic books and was never brought to life. It’s a pretty mindless story of confusing revenge, that mixes the paranormal with history in a tale that’s pitiful and painful. There are moments of action that got my pulse elevated to the equivilant of a brisk walk. I’m also a Civil War junkie and loved the post-war world the characters lived in. However the overall product called Jonah Hex will definitely be the black mark on most of these actors’ resumes and, yes, that even includes Megan Fox.
Jonah Hex (Rated PG-13)
Gavin Grade: D

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/movies/article/825288--jonah-hex-that-bombing-sound-could-be-fox-s-career

Jonah Hex: That bombing sound could be Fox’s career
Published 36 minutes ago

John Malkovich, left, stars as Quentin Turnbull and Wes Bentley plays Adelman Lusk in Jonah Hex.

John Malkovich, left, stars as Quentin Turnbull and Wes Bentley plays Adelman Lusk in Jonah Hex.

By Peter Howell Movie Critic

(out of 4)

Starring Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Michael Fassbender and Wes Bentley. Directed by Jimmy Hayward. 81 minutes. At major theatres. 14A

Lots of things go ka-boom and rat-a-tat-tat in Jonah Hex, a barrel-scraping attempt at another comic book movie franchise.

But the most interesting sound is the steady tick-tick-tick of the clock winding down on Megan Fox’s 15 minutes of fame.

After burning her bridges with Transformers, and bombing with Jennifer’s Body, this was supposed to be the summer blockbuster that restored her to the big screen and the hearts of fanboys.

No such luck in this artlessly directed and sloppily written production, which has been slipped into theatres without benefit of a proper critical preview — and it's easy to see why.

Jimmy Hayward directs the title anti-hero, drawn from the DC Comics series of the same name, who is played with neither humour nor flair by Josh Brolin. He’ll not look back fondly on this role.

Hex is a bounty hunter and former Confederate Army soldier, condemned by dark magic to exist in an other-world between life and death.

He has semi-supernatural powers, conferred by a sympathetic Indian shaman, but also a fearsome machine gun.

Hex’s face was gruesomely disfigured by the same man who killed his family and caused his ghostly misery: terrorist Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich).

Hex’s only earthly friend is Lilah (Megan Fox), a hooker with a heart of gold and her own basket of pain. Too bad she doesn’t also have much of an actress to play her, but then nobody in this film comes out smelling like roses.

Hex wants nothing to do with normal society or politics, yet he’s summoned by the U.S. president to help save his still-young country.

Seems the odious Turnbull, played by Malkovich in full shrubbery- chewing mode, has managed to cheat death himself.

He’s somehow managed to acquire a weapon of mass destruction that looks a lot like an atomic bomb.

The movie may be set in the 1870s, the years immediately following the Civil War, but the parallels with today’s terrorism battles are driven home like a tomahawk through the skull.

This looked to be a priority project by Warner Bros. at one point — that is until cash spigot got turned off. The special effects are really cheesy, even by comic-book standards.

The running time has been cut to a savage 81 minutes, suggesting serious editing, but it still feels long.

You’d have think they'd had learned from the spectacular failure of Wild Wild West a decade or so ago.

But you know what it is about hexes; they’re awfully hard to remove, once acquired, and Jonah Hex seems well and truly cursed.

http://www.metronews.ca/toronto/entertainment/article/555462--jonah-hex

Jonah Hex
Stick to the comic book

Josh Brolin plays the title character in Jonah Hex.

NED EHRBAR
METRO WORLD NEWS
June 18, 2010 12:00 a.m.

Director: Jimmy Hayward
Stars: Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich
Classification: 14A
Rating: *

The best part of Jonah Hex — where the movie really becomes fun — is during a brief sequence at the beginning when a bulk of backstory for Hex (Josh Brolin) is told using animation similar to the comic book on which the movie is based.

That’s a really long way of saying go read the comic, and skip this loud, clumsy super-western.

The story follows Hex, who developed mystical powers after some Native Americans saved him from the grave, enlisted by President Ulysses S. Grant (Aidan Quinn) to stop Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), a former Confederate officer who’s hilariously presented as the country’s first terrorist.

As lots of dialogue and unnecessary narration reminds us, the mission’s personal for Hex, since Turnbull killed his wife and son.

Lots of time and effort was put into getting the massive scars covering half of Hex’s face right, which must be why so much of Brolin’s screen time is spent in close-ups shot to highlight it.

Perhaps they should’ve spent a bit more time and effort on making sure he could speak clearly through all the prosthetic work. At one point, Hex dispatches a bad guy and delivers what we have to assume is a witty one-liner. The problem is it’s unintelligible.

The real tragedy is the amount of acting talent involved, including Brolin, Malkovich and Michael Fassbender (a breakout in Inglorious Basterds).

Megan Fox can’t really be faulted, as she’s barely in the movie and has very little to do but scowl and heave her chest when she is there.

The cast is definitely having fun with the material, but that fun doesn’t extend to the audience, unfortunately.

http://www.sohood.com/crib/2010/06/17/jonah-hex-movie-reviews-megan-fox/

Jonah Hex Movie Reviews, Megan Fox
June 17, 2010, 9:40 pm

The overall Rating of The movie Jonah Hex is generally getting unfavorable reviews, so far as early reviews come in. It’s too early to tell, how this movie is going to do, but here is a small sample of what reviews say about the movie Plot of the movie: Josh Brolin stars as a scarred bounty hunter charged with hunting down his oldest enemy who is preparing to unleash Hell. Starring: Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Will Arnett, and Michael Shannon.

Here are some favorable reviews, as the ones you’ll find below:

It’s based on some DC Comics characters, which may explain the way the plot jumps around. We hear a lot about graphic novels, but this is more of a graphic anthology of strange occult ideas. -Roger Ebert

Here’s how you know Josh Brolin has become a movie star: Jonah Hex may not be much with him, but without him? Perish the thought. Perish it, throw an ax in its heart, then burn it to a crisp.
 -Chicago Tribune/strong>

The Mixed and less favorable reviews in the media.

The opening frame of Jonah Hex should say: “Caution: Made expressly for the male teen demographic. Not suitable for anyone of any age who prefers movies with coherence, an original plot or characters they give a hoot about.” -USA Today

Jonah Hex somehow manages to waste the talents of Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, Aidan Quinn and Jeffrey Dean Morgan in a story that combines vengeance, the occult and an Old West war on terror (really). “-Arizona Republic

http://www.reelmovienews.com/2010/06/reel-movie-reviews-jonah-hex/

Reel Movie Reviews: Jonah Hex
Posted on June 17th, 2010 10:00 PM by Rupert Pupkin

Seeing as how short Jonah Hex is (it barely manages to break the 80 minute mark), I'll do my best to keep this review brief and simple. Jonah Hex sucks. That's all you really need to know.

Alright, there are some amusing moments, all of them stemming from Josh Brolin making the best of the sad situation he got himself into. How did that happen, anyway? The man was in an Oscar-winning film just a few short years ago.

I don't care what went wrong on set, the script for Jonah Hex, written by Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, the two geniuses who gave us Crank and the much stupider Crank 2, could not have been so good to actually attract such talents as Brolin, John Malkovich or Michael Fassbender. No, it sounds like we have a classic case of paycheck-cashing going on here.

Still, Brolin manages to be entertaining in a film that's so bad it seems to be fast forwarding through itself. After an almost intriguing opening 30 minutes, where we see the story of how Jonah Hex turned coat on the maniacal Confederate General Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich) and in effect got his family burned alive and his face branded by the very man he double-crossed, it's a quick ride downhill to the place where Will Smith's folly Wild Wild West went to die.

The banality of the script is reflected the most in Megan Fox, who surprisingly has less to do in Hex than she did in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which was essentially just to look pretty. Reports of reshoots and extensive recuts suggest that maybe large portions of her performance were excised in order to save the whole thing from sinking. Ouch. No wonder Paramount didn't renew her contract for Transformers 3.

As a result, or perhaps it was never intended to be explained at all, her character Lilah, a sultry 19th century hooker, loves the scarred bounty hunter Hex only because the script says so. There is no rhyme or reason, and no real history to explain the attraction, so I've invented my own excuse: she likes to stick her tongue through his scar hole.

John Malkovich is oddly restrained as Quentin Turnbull- another victim of excessive cuts, or is he just plain bored? I'd think the latter, as Malkovich has been a rather respected and self-aware thespian for decades, and the character's wily look and apparent demeanor should have required something more flamboyant from the man who played Cyrus the Virus in Con Air. This is especially true when you consider just how ridiculous the plot is.

Basically, Turnbull hates now President Ulysses S. Grant and and wants to blow up Washington DC on the 4th of July, 1876 with a giant cannon mounted on an armored boat that looks like the Monitor and the Merrimack. Naturally, unlikely hero Jonah Hex, who can momentarily resurrect the dead, a "kinduva knack I picked up when I near died myself," he claims, must track down Turnbull, prevent the disaster and save America.

Somewhere between here and there, a face-tattooed Michael Fassbender blows up a train. Turnbull blows up an entire town with his super-weapon. There's an acid-spitting snake man. A desert appears on the East coast. Jonah Hex gets horse-mounted dual Gatling guns and one-handed dynamite crossbows. Megan Fox looks sexy. Jonah talks to the dead. Megan Fox looks sexy. Jonah eliminates bad guys with a flame thrower. Getting confusing yet? It all happened so fast I didn't have a chance to knit it all together.

That's what it's like- a patchwork film that's so dismembered and recombined that it pushes the limit of coherence. There are a lot of random cool ideas and a lot of eye candy, but none of it adds up. Sure, the original directors (the aforementioned Neveldine and Taylor) jumped ship and were replaced, hilariously, by the guy who directed Horton Hears a Who, causing a massive upheaval in the production. Well, maybe Neveldine and Taylor aren't as stupid as the script belies, unless it was their idea to have Mastodon score the film. If only Josh Brolin could have jumped off this runaway train before it totally wrecked...

Is it just me or has this year been a particularly bad one for movies? Jonah Hex gets 1.5 stars, only because I like Josh Brolin, and I can't allow myself to give this mess two stars.

Jonah Hex
Editor Rating: 1.5 / 5.0

User Rating: 5.0 / 5.0

http://www.ohmpage.ca/2010/06/17/review-jonah-hex/

Review: Jonah Hex
by Raj Patel ON Thursday, June 17, 2010

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Jonah Hex is a movie adaptation of a graphic novel by DC comics by the same name. On paper it seems to have a lot of ingredients to a fun summer action blockbuster. I know a few people who are even excited to check it out. What’s th worst that could happen? It’s a hard rock western tale of revenge with lots of explosions and a seasoned cast. What could go wrong?

Well, unfortunately everything went wrong. I’m hard pressed to come up with any redeeming qualities for this movie other than the fact that It’s running time is not much over an hour, so at least it ends. That’s a good thing and knowing that was the only thing that kept me watching. The one thing I enjoyed here was Michael Fassbender’s performance as ‘Burke’ – the antagonist’s Chief henchman. His performance tries to redeem the film and does the best with what he has set before him.

It wasn’t even bad in a ‘oh my god this is amazing! did you see that part? what where they thinking?!’ sort of way. No. It was just bad in a banal, forgettable, and inexplicable way. What a dissapointment. I don’t it’s worth watching even if for free. And I’ll willingly watch a lot of bad movies, being able to find redeeming qualities in almost anything.

To summarise the movie it’s sufficed to say that it’s Wild Wild West crossed with The Crow. Forget that though because you dont need to follow character motivations or story line anyhow since every scene is an island. The potentially most interesting scenes are left for voiceover work or on the editing room floor. It might make sense if I point out that the writers also penned Crank (which, by the way, I loved!)

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The action is confusing and poorly cut. The editing is nonsensical and suspect. The music is out of place. The dialog is absurd. The set and wardrobe design are passable but that’s more or less it. The production has all the set pieces but they can’t seem to get them in order and do anything with them. It’s as if they got half way through production and the budget was cut with them being told to ‘hurry it up’ by the executive branch.

I’ll summarise by the example of one of the film’s early scenes. Jonah comes in to town with some freshly killed bounties to redeem his reward. One thing leads to another and he ends up in a firefight. No surprises there. He fires off quickly with a pair of gatling guns from 2 meters away from his target. Misses them all. What? Later, once everyone is dead he leaves the town and it explodes in a glorious fireball. This chain of events is exemplory for about every other scene of the movie.

I’m usually good at figuring out who will like almost anything. Even if it’s not great, it’s made such that someone will like it. It may not be for me but it’s for someone, right? This time I’m at a loss. I can’t figure out who will like, or even not hate this movie.