Jonah doesn’t just have a hex on his character, it appears the hoodoo is also on this latest attempt to propel a niche graphic novel into the mainstream (The Spirit anyone?).
With a US Box Office take of just $10.5 million in total, and the quality control curse known as Megan “Jennifer’s Body” Fox, preventing hell on earth would seem like a walk in the park by comparison.
Similar in narrative origin, and eventual outcome, to the awful Ghostrider movie, Jonah Hex is the wannabe Faustian fable of a Wild West lawman and hideously disfigured anti-hero Jonah (Josh Brolin – W), who can also communicate with the dead. He was imbued with this gift by the Native Americans that saved him from the burning house in which his wife and child perished. Filled with vengeance against those that murdered his family, Jonah makes a pact with the government to track down his former Confederacy Captain, Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) and his sidekick Burke (Michael Fassbender), and bring them to justice. Dum-dum-duuuuuuuuummmmmb!
The first thing you must be thinking is, take a look at that cast list! It’s incredible! Malkovich, Fassbender, Brolin, Michael Shannon, Aiden Quinn, heck, even Megan Fox still has some appeal beyond the pneumatic body, doesn’t she? Well it’s safe to say that if there was an acting equivalent of the Alan Smithee pseudonym (given to directors should they wish to be disassociated with a movie), then Jonah Hex would be a film starring multiple Alan Smithees. It’s not that it’s terrible, it’s that with a cast list like that, how could it be THIS terrible?
At 80-odd minutes long it is clearly a film that had some post-production problems. Huge chunks of it consist of montages, some stylishly lifted from Joan Albano and Tony DeZuniga’s graphic novel, accompanied by a lacklustre and mumbled voice over from Brolin, as if to join the incoherent dots. The most frustrating thing is that at times you can see the promise of a better film amongst the butchered final product.
A blur of cheap looking sets and poorly lit action sequences that never capitalise on the always interesting Western locales (where are the high-noon showdowns?), the mediocrity soon blends into a single stream of uneventful action, the odd grimace, and some cringe-worthy one-liners that our pizza faced hero delivers with increasing embarrassment – “I cut myself shaving” – despite Brolin’s best intentions.
Jonah Hex makes John Malkovich’s role in dragon fantasy Eragon seem like Oscar worthy acting, but even worse than that, failing on every level means that The Last Airbender won’t be the biggest stinker of 2010.
[etRating value=“ 1”]
With a US Box Office take of just $10.5 million in total, and the quality control curse known as Megan “Jennifer’s Body” Fox, preventing hell on earth would seem like a walk in the park by comparison.
Similar in narrative origin, and eventual outcome, to the awful Ghostrider movie, Jonah Hex is the wannabe Faustian fable of a Wild West lawman and hideously disfigured anti-hero Jonah (Josh Brolin – W), who can also communicate with the dead. He was imbued with this gift by the Native Americans that saved him from the burning house in which his wife and child perished. Filled with vengeance against those that murdered his family, Jonah makes a pact with the government to track down his former Confederacy Captain, Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) and his sidekick Burke (Michael Fassbender), and bring them to justice. Dum-dum-duuuuuuuuummmmmb!
The first thing you must be thinking is, take a look at that cast list! It’s incredible! Malkovich, Fassbender, Brolin, Michael Shannon, Aiden Quinn, heck, even Megan Fox still has some appeal beyond the pneumatic body, doesn’t she? Well it’s safe to say that if there was an acting equivalent of the Alan Smithee pseudonym (given to directors should they wish to be disassociated with a movie), then Jonah Hex would be a film starring multiple Alan Smithees. It’s not that it’s terrible, it’s that with a cast list like that, how could it be THIS terrible?
At 80-odd minutes long it is clearly a film that had some post-production problems. Huge chunks of it consist of montages, some stylishly lifted from Joan Albano and Tony DeZuniga’s graphic novel, accompanied by a lacklustre and mumbled voice over from Brolin, as if to join the incoherent dots. The most frustrating thing is that at times you can see the promise of a better film amongst the butchered final product.
A blur of cheap looking sets and poorly lit action sequences that never capitalise on the always interesting Western locales (where are the high-noon showdowns?), the mediocrity soon blends into a single stream of uneventful action, the odd grimace, and some cringe-worthy one-liners that our pizza faced hero delivers with increasing embarrassment – “I cut myself shaving” – despite Brolin’s best intentions.
Jonah Hex makes John Malkovich’s role in dragon fantasy Eragon seem like Oscar worthy acting, but even worse than that, failing on every level means that The Last Airbender won’t be the biggest stinker of 2010.
[etRating value=“ 1”]
