What a disappointment. First of all, the movie is only 81 minutes long, so look for a DVD director's cut that will hopefully fill in some gaps.
The whole thing just felt rushed and sloppy. And many elements were very out of place (especially the entire terrorist plot - - including guys with dynamite strapped to their bodies like suicide bombers - - and the "super-weapon" the villains were using - - very out of place for a western, even if it's based on a comic book). Also, the supernatural elements didn't quite gel and anyone who doesn't go into the movie knowing something about the JONAH HEX comics will probably be a bit confused bercause they don't spend enough time explaining who Jonah is, how he got his supernatural powers, and the parameters of those powers.
The best part of the movie is John Malkovich . . . and Josh Brolin is decent (but not great) as Jonah.
Oh, well . . .
Granted, I've never been a big Hex fan, but I don't remember him having any supernatural powers in the comics.
I watched this the other day, I didn't think it was all that bad. However it undoubtedly has it's faults. Warning possible spoilers
On the good side I thought the acting from Brolin was solid. Much like his character in the movie, he's a testament to being resurrected in more ways than one. I like the gritty feel of the film which reminded me of old Spaghetti westerns. However I should point out that it had an almost steampunk quality to it. And luckily (this was big with me) the shaky camera angle sh!t was I felt toned down for the film. It was good to see who was hitting who for a change. I also enjoyed the Irish villain.
On the other side of the fence though, yes the film was horribly rushed. Coming in at a little over an hour I felt a bit shafted. I would have liked to see more cool weaponry used by Hex. Not to mention more of a gore factor which I felt the film could have really benefited from in the long run. In other words, it was what it's rating allowed it to be...subpar in that department.
Megan Fox's character proves only to be eye candy with hardly any other point of her being there. And I actually felt Malkovich was wasted in his role. I didn't see him as anything else but himself in a wig.
Overall note a bad film but it ended up being a "what could have been" endeavor.
I used to read Jonah Hex comics back in the '80s so I was stoked for the movie when I first heard about it.
When it came out on DVD I rented it and didn't think it was THAT bad, but it certainly could've been a helluva lot better. I guess I expected it to be a lot worse, due to all the bad reviews and its lightning-fast fade from theaters. For what it is, it's an OK action flick. It just feels like it was never quite finished.
I understand there were tons of last minute reshoots and edits to achieve the dreaded PG-13 rating so apparently lots of stuff wound up cut out of the film, and new material was stuffed in to take its place. Maybe that's why the film flows about as well as a wedding video shot by a drunken camera man.
There's probably a pretty decent movie in there somewhere, it just got lost amidst all of the studio meddling.
Jonah Hex didn't need to be an $80 million movie. The pre-release hype for it was absolutely ridiculous, they were pimping it as if it were a huge "event" movie like the freakin Dark Knight. The problem was, Jonah Hex is not a well known enough character to justify such hype. Outside of the comic book geek community, the average movie goer was like "Jonah Who?"
I think if they'd done the movie for half the budget (hell, maybe even a quarter of it) and released it quietly to DVD it might've been received more favorably.
For starters, Johah Hex DOESN'T have any sort of super powers in his comics. He has however encountered time travelers, supernatural creatures, and was even a Black Lantern during the Blackest Night story line recently. (Black Lanterns were undead superheros powered by black power rings and there's way too much about it to explain about it right now)
His comic books started out very much traditional westerns and that's maybe what should have been the goal of this movie. A scarred traveler looking for revenge. I guess I didn't mind the whole super weapon that much.
Megan Fox wasn't in the movie long enough for me to really care.
I like the underground fight scene between the strong man amd what seemed to be some sort of vampire/undead creature.
Didn't hate it, but didn't love it.
Quote
Jonah Hex didn't need to be an $80 million movie. The pre-release hype for it was absolutely ridiculous, they were pimping it as if it were a huge "event" movie like the freakin Dark Knight. The problem was, Jonah Hex is not a well known enough character to justify such hype. Outside of the comic book geek community, the average movie goer was like "Jonah Who?"
Yeah... They should have made a $20 million western with the same villain - who is the first major villain Jonah Hex deals with in the comics. Just a post-Civil War western with an almost impossibly badass lead character with hideous scars. Maybe have a MINOR supernatural element - say, have the villain recruit the indian who screwed over Jonah Hex and led to him being scarred, have him use some sort of Indian magic... Maybe a skinwalker? Or an undead variant? But it should mostly be a straight western with a badass lead killing people with dual revolvers.
Hell, Jonah Hex'd make a great TV show too. Doesn't need to be expensive.
Looking back, this may be the worst movie I saw in a theater in 2010.
This and Gamer reminds me why I hate Mark Neveldine.
Quote from: The Burgomaster on September 18, 2011, 10:34:40 AM
Looking back, this may be the worst movie I saw in a theater in 2010.
I agree. It was terrible as a stand alone movie and downright egregious as a filmitization(?) of the comic. The 70's comic was pretty cool and the newest book is really good too. It boggles my mind how, with decades of source material, so many rotten and unimaginitive comic book based movies are turned out.
Quote from: Hammock Rider on September 19, 2011, 11:05:35 AMI agree. It was terrible as a stand alone movie and downright egregious as a filmitization(?) of the comic. The 70's comic was pretty cool and the newest book is really good too. It boggles my mind how, with decades of source material, so many rotten and unimaginitive comic book based movies are turned out.
On top of that, bad comic book movies are all bad in almost exactly the same way. It's just another syndrome of Hollywood making the same damn movie over and over again.
So many of these are designed to gear towards making a "franchise" to appeal to the masses which is tough with a darker comic series like Jonah Hex which should play more like a gritty B-Western, or maybe even spaghetti western, with a few odd elements of sci-fi and horror thrown in.