My Review of Jonah Hex (2010)

 

Written by William Farmer And Neveldine & Taylor

Directed by Jimmy Hayward

Jeb Turnbull: "You killed me, Jonah!"

Jonah Hex: "You drew on me, Jeb."

Jeb Turnbull: "Yeah, that was a mistake."

Jonah Hex: "Well, obviously."

Venturing into some of DC's worst failures, I have a confession to make. Prior to yesterday, I had never watched this movie and after yesterday, I can honestly I'm not inclined to watch it again. Oh boy, did I find this to be a stinker.

A character would be much better handled on the CW via DC's Legends Of Tomorrow, this live action version had Josh Brolin taking on the title character and quite frankly, he gave a very lethargic performance throughout the movie. It's like he knew this movie had bomb written all over it and gave up.

The movie opened with Jonah coming afoul of commanding officer, Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich). Refusing an order from his superior saw the latter killing Jonah's family and badly scarring him for good measure. This event sent Jonah on a dark path where Jonah was convinced that he had gotten his revenge.

The stinker being that Turnbull had faked his death, wasn't remotely repentant for killing Jonah's family and even had grand plans of his own for the Fourth of July. It's these plans that led to the government seeking Jonah out in order to stop Turnbull from attacking the U.S.

That's about the short of the movie. There's also the female led and given the genre, it's a gun toting prostitute named Tallulah Black (Megan Fox). She's mostly a love interest for Jonah, gets slut shamed by the men of the movie but also proved to be a lot smarter than all of them combined. That included Jonah as well.

In terms of villains, both Turnbull and his right hand man, Burke (Michael Fassbender) are some of the worst seen in a comic book movie. Fassbender's Irish accent in particular was atrocious to listen to and I was certainly pleased when he got a much deserved comeuppance along with Turnbull. There's also the fact that the movie ended with Jonah going from solo bounty hunter to government hire to boot.

- It's funny watching this movie knowing that Brolin would go on to play both Cable and Thanos for Marvel as would Fassbender play Magneto as well. We also might be getting Brolin for the DCU.

- DC has had some flops but this movie bombed so bad it barely made a quarter of it's low budget. Yikes.

- Standout music: Stephen Foster's Ring da Banjo.

- Chronology: 1876 South Carolina for a good portion of this movie.

Jonah Hex was a mess. Fortunately, it was only 81 minutes but it felt like a slog to get through. Lifeless performances from everyone, a dull revenge story and some casual sexism that hasn't aged well. I was thoroughly bored with this one.

Rating: 4 out of 10