Jonah Hex (2010)

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1. 

   dpanter

   I hate Hollywood sometimes.
   They killed one of my favorite childhood comics. Killed it with fire. Damnit Josh, you should know better by now. 12 years 8 months ago
2. 

   Siskoid

   Sometimes, you can just tell a studio went in and screwed with a project. I won't say Jonah Hex would have been good had they not - they simply switched one B-movie director for another - but it probably wouldn't have been such a mess. When the needless origin story (which drives a hack revenge plot) is followed by narration over bad flash animation, you know there's a piece of the movie missing. Josh Brolin has complained that he had to reshoot 66 scenes in three days, and going by onscreen evidence, the new version added a nonsense (and cliched) superweapon plot right out of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (cuz THAT was a hit), and kept the origin ending in as a... dream? Impossible flashback? The third act is particularly disjointed. It's too bad, because there was potential there. That post-animation intro to the character, bringing back bounty and not standing for getting cheated, promises a fun, violent western that doesn't take itself too seriously. And Josh Brolin is a good Jonah, even if I would have liked the make-up to be more extreme. But it all goes downhill from there. The movie's essential mistake is that it so visibly wants to be a COMIC BOOK MOVIE!!!!! (If reading aloud, you must shout at the top of your lungs.) Jonah has to have a villain tied into his origin story. He has to have super-powers (WHAT!?). There's a supernatural element because the writers were obviously handed Two-Gun Mojo, but it doesn't play as a horror film like it should. There's mad science and gadget guns. The Frankenstein's monster production is probably to blame for its noncommittal tone, but I can't review what might have been, only what sadly is. It's no secret I consider the WB's cinematic handling of DC Comics properties to be wrong-headed, so that a serious IP like Hex would be treated as B-movie silly buggers, while its aspirational superhero movies are ponderous and bleak. It makes no sense. What the WB actually has, but doesn't know it, and in fact sank with this version of Jonah Hex, is the capacity to make cool, serious, high-concept westerns in a unique cinematic universe (I could say the same of DC's war strips or horror). But that's a notion that probably only works in my mind. Just watch when I become head of studio... 2 years 1 month ago
3. 

   goellnerd

   I wish I could go back in time and return to when I hadn't watched this movie. Only an hour 20 with 8 minutes of credits. 3 years 4 months ago

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