A Movie In Hell
There comes a time when westerns have been plentiful in the cinema. Nowadays, the western is more scarce than a discovery of a gold nugget.
But we got one in theaters which is a kind of mix, not a straight out western shooting across the screens because there are bits of horror thrown in, some science fiction. It's called Jonah Hex.
It's not a bad movie. But it's clearly not a good movie either. I could call it a wildly uneven film with some stylistically good material scattered between even longer chunks of awfulness. Sadly, the awful stuff happens more often than good. It's a missed opportunity.
Such a movie directed by Jimmy Hayward like this may very well turn anyone away from making a good western for a long time again. That's too bad.
Some of the good points? Josh Brolin does his very best with the material he's working with and can make a convincing Jonah Hex when he rises to the occasion. John Malcovich is excellent in his role as the opposing villain hell-bent on taking over the United States.
There are some nice scenes too where Jonah goes to the cemetery to dig up a coffin. When he first strikes the stone marker, making a crashing sound, all the crows in the cemetery flap up into a hurricane of darkness. It's a very nice scene. The film captures the style of the original comic books in some portions.
But it all stops there.
And the awfulness simply begins.
Megan Fox is such a terrible actress as she couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. She looks more like eye candy. There's no doubt she's an attractive woman with her slender thighs and curvy features. But her acting leaves little to be desired. If she was in a movie called “Babes in Bondage,” she would be terrible in that one.
Some of the plot really can get messed up as threads weave into confusion, and it loses its focus. But it clearly needs better editors. There is no way for a horse, any horse, to carry a gattling gun that's bigger, heavier than the state of Texas. That horse would never have been able to carry it. And the horse would have sustained burn marks if the gattling gun spat out all those chunks of lead. I feel sorry for the horse. I feel even more sorry for this movie.
There are a lot of dumb stuff in this movie.
The secret weapon is very dumb. It's a giant cannon. It's a dumb design with a dumb approach. I'm figuring they are trying to harken back to the excellent “Wild,Wild West” shows of the 1960s... but the old shows made their creations more interesting. This particular secret weapon makes no sense. It shoots out several lead balls, then finally shoots out the final ball which detonates the entire area in which the scattered balls span. What's the point of this? It takes too long. And you can do the same thing with one, giant explosion.
I don't understand why they give Jonah a supernatural power... giving him the ability to talk to dead folks. All the information he got from the dead could have been easily obtained somewhere else. Jonah didn't have such powers when he is in the comic. Unless I'm missing something here. But this power is probably given because he's supposed to be a “comic book” hero. That's not the point. The original book is a western with elements of horror... Jonah's simply a bounty hunter with a strict code of honor.
The final fight between Jonah and his foe is dumb. This is a dumb fight that goes back and forth between them fighting and another sequence where they must be fighting in hell. I could never make head or tail of this. I'm probably confused like the rest of the audience. Which only made up about ten people where I went on Friday night.
Jonah isn't a nice guy. He never is in the comics he starred in. He shot a man in the ear once and another through his foot. He didn't let a bandit finish his sentence before shooting him through the mouth in a hostage situation. No, he's not nice at all. He isn't nice to his women either. He's a loner, a man standing on the edge of hell itself. He prefers it this way.
There's one scene where Jonah shoves a guy near a giant spinning fan on the boat, and the machine lopped off the back of the guy's head off. But Jonah in the comics would've probably let the fan chop off the guy's ear first, then maybe his other ear just because he didn't like him. Another missed opportunity.
The comics are awesome. I would recommend the comic books instead which started in 1971 which is nearly four decades of interesting storytelling especially. Jonah starred in his own book in the mid-1970s. The series revived recently with some stellar writing and drawing, bringing to life the western on the pages of a comic book. It breathes with greater creativity. I love the new comic books because they keep true to the character of Jonah Hex, a brutal man, a renegade, always looking for a way to satisfy his lust for violence. Yeah, he's a violent man. He's good with his guns.
You may want to read the comic books instead. They're better made. For the movie? If you want to take a ticket to hell itself, go right head. It's a pretty painful one to watch.
But we got one in theaters which is a kind of mix, not a straight out western shooting across the screens because there are bits of horror thrown in, some science fiction. It's called Jonah Hex.
It's not a bad movie. But it's clearly not a good movie either. I could call it a wildly uneven film with some stylistically good material scattered between even longer chunks of awfulness. Sadly, the awful stuff happens more often than good. It's a missed opportunity.
Such a movie directed by Jimmy Hayward like this may very well turn anyone away from making a good western for a long time again. That's too bad.
Some of the good points? Josh Brolin does his very best with the material he's working with and can make a convincing Jonah Hex when he rises to the occasion. John Malcovich is excellent in his role as the opposing villain hell-bent on taking over the United States.
There are some nice scenes too where Jonah goes to the cemetery to dig up a coffin. When he first strikes the stone marker, making a crashing sound, all the crows in the cemetery flap up into a hurricane of darkness. It's a very nice scene. The film captures the style of the original comic books in some portions.
But it all stops there.
And the awfulness simply begins.
Megan Fox is such a terrible actress as she couldn't act her way out of a paper bag. She looks more like eye candy. There's no doubt she's an attractive woman with her slender thighs and curvy features. But her acting leaves little to be desired. If she was in a movie called “Babes in Bondage,” she would be terrible in that one.
Some of the plot really can get messed up as threads weave into confusion, and it loses its focus. But it clearly needs better editors. There is no way for a horse, any horse, to carry a gattling gun that's bigger, heavier than the state of Texas. That horse would never have been able to carry it. And the horse would have sustained burn marks if the gattling gun spat out all those chunks of lead. I feel sorry for the horse. I feel even more sorry for this movie.
There are a lot of dumb stuff in this movie.
The secret weapon is very dumb. It's a giant cannon. It's a dumb design with a dumb approach. I'm figuring they are trying to harken back to the excellent “Wild,Wild West” shows of the 1960s... but the old shows made their creations more interesting. This particular secret weapon makes no sense. It shoots out several lead balls, then finally shoots out the final ball which detonates the entire area in which the scattered balls span. What's the point of this? It takes too long. And you can do the same thing with one, giant explosion.
I don't understand why they give Jonah a supernatural power... giving him the ability to talk to dead folks. All the information he got from the dead could have been easily obtained somewhere else. Jonah didn't have such powers when he is in the comic. Unless I'm missing something here. But this power is probably given because he's supposed to be a “comic book” hero. That's not the point. The original book is a western with elements of horror... Jonah's simply a bounty hunter with a strict code of honor.
The final fight between Jonah and his foe is dumb. This is a dumb fight that goes back and forth between them fighting and another sequence where they must be fighting in hell. I could never make head or tail of this. I'm probably confused like the rest of the audience. Which only made up about ten people where I went on Friday night.
Jonah isn't a nice guy. He never is in the comics he starred in. He shot a man in the ear once and another through his foot. He didn't let a bandit finish his sentence before shooting him through the mouth in a hostage situation. No, he's not nice at all. He isn't nice to his women either. He's a loner, a man standing on the edge of hell itself. He prefers it this way.
There's one scene where Jonah shoves a guy near a giant spinning fan on the boat, and the machine lopped off the back of the guy's head off. But Jonah in the comics would've probably let the fan chop off the guy's ear first, then maybe his other ear just because he didn't like him. Another missed opportunity.
The comics are awesome. I would recommend the comic books instead which started in 1971 which is nearly four decades of interesting storytelling especially. Jonah starred in his own book in the mid-1970s. The series revived recently with some stellar writing and drawing, bringing to life the western on the pages of a comic book. It breathes with greater creativity. I love the new comic books because they keep true to the character of Jonah Hex, a brutal man, a renegade, always looking for a way to satisfy his lust for violence. Yeah, he's a violent man. He's good with his guns.
You may want to read the comic books instead. They're better made. For the movie? If you want to take a ticket to hell itself, go right head. It's a pretty painful one to watch.
posted by K.M. Paters at 11:31 AM
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