http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/buzz-log-bombs-away-jonah-hex.html
Number 1 to note on this diatribe of idiocy, is that Jonah Hex, albeit a comic that has been around for a few decades now, is not really that popular. Batman is popular, you know who he is don’t you? Superman anyone? How about the X-men? Still yes? Now, Jonah Hex? If you read comics then you know who he is, you’ve passed his comic month after month picking up your new issues off the shelves, and generally skipping over that one. If you aren’t an avid reader of comics, maybe you’ve passed it in the grocery store’s rotating stand, perhaps your kid was shifting through them and you saw that half ugly mug of his, but no, really, if you don’t read comics, you have no clue of who Jonah Hex is.
Oh, and that review there, it was on the front page of Yahoo. I’m sure that’s what the producers, director, other actors, financial backers, studio, etc, want you to read and believe. That one skinny and moderately attractive girl being in the film is to blame for it’s supreme underperformance.
Now, I’m not saying Jonah Hex isn’t a bad movie, because I’m sure it is. I saw the preview, and that’s really all I needed to know it has little or nothing, besides a grim looking anti-hero, to do with the long-running comic series. (or graphic novel series for all of you youngsters who don’t know they still originate in single comic issues first) Some time ago I found myself with a desire to sit down and finally watch a Spaghetti Western. Sure, I’d seen Unforgiven, Tombstone, and a few other more modern ones, but I just wanted something, well…I don’t even really know. I just knew that something wasn’t quite satisfying about the more modern western tales. So I went out and rented Fistful of Dollars starring Clint Eastwood. It would be easy to pick that film apart based off of today’s standards where 3-D is treated as some new idea, and whole movies are basically CGI’d save for the parts where human characters are sitting and talking. It seems that in nearly every movie and in every scene there is some CGI to be spotted. That’s one of the many reasons westerns are so appealing. The cast was out there, amongst the sage, the brush, the horses, the stagecoaches and even a neat enough looking little street town. Even though we know that they’re on sets sometimes, the backdrop is believable.
Really you can liken it to Star Wars, the originals. (episodes 4-6 to you youngins.) For Episode 4 Lucas took the cast and crew out into the desert. Harsh. It was believable because it was there, it was real, and we believed these characters were inhabiting this expansive world around them. It’s the same magic the old Spaghetti Westerns had, even if it wasn’t really the Old, or the West. But the point was that it felt like it was the old west. Forget the obvious missed punches, fake bullets, Italians as Mexicans, blah blah blah. These things were used in order to make cheaper movies, but ones that had a good solid story line. Fistful of dollars introduced us to our hero, gruff, smoking, and seemingly accepting of the harsh world around so long as it didn’t bother him. In later films his character changes somewhat, but he’s still basically the same wandering bounty hunter just looking for a satchel-full of cash. But our hero soon proves that he has a bit of a heart still, and ends up getting himself in a corner and beat up. It was at this moment when I understood Jonah Hex.
We are now decades later, and sadly Eastwood is too old to play the part of Jonah Hex. A character that over the years has come to resemble Eastwood’s Man With No Name more and more. But Brolin is a fine enough actor, and the ability of makeup, and even CGI these days is seemingly limitless. Look at the Dark Knight, another DC Warner Bros film. Harvey Dent’s face is amazing. It shocks you when you first see it. So with decades of westerns paving the way for this possibly iconic character, and the Dark Knight a leader in comic films and raising the bar for the standard of comic book movies, shouldn’t this be an easy step to making a good movie?
Apparently not. Not according to the heaping mounds of negative reviews. So am I cheating by trying to review something I have not even seen? No. I can’t think that I am. After all, I did see the preview once, and it looked as bad as it seems to be. It looked like a rehash of Wild Wild West. Now Wild Wild West was another old idea turned new. It was originally a Tv show from back in my Father’s childhood, so it probably needed a little something to rehash it. And seeing as how Will Smith was big at the time, and MIB was even bigger, it was no surprise to me that it ended up being the way it was. But here we are a decade later, and still making the same films. So what’s the problem?
Who can really say. But one thing is for certain, someone should be saying something. I understand money and people that just want to make some no matter the how, but doesn’t it just make far too much sense that if a movie was good, labored over with a loving eye and attention to detail, wouldn’t people go to see it, or swipe it off the net? Simply if a movie looks terrible, will people avoid it? Hell yes. Of course they will. Now, granted, Wolverine Origins looked terrible, and was generally a disappointment to comic lovers. But the character had already been proven popular enough through three prior movies, even if the third was less than good. Another point is the prequel Star Wars Movies, and the newest Indiana Jones. The character of Indiana is a widely loved icon, so that movie was going to rake in the cash no matter how good it was, which it wasn’t. Star Wars prequels? No matter how big a disappointment the first one was, people kept going back to see the rest. The point is that if you have established characters you can get away with a lot more. Jonah Hex being a barely established character outside of huge comic-reading fans, they really would have had to do something special to get our attention and make us want to go. Throwing together fluff in a Hex-like package was never going to work. But still, none of this is the fault of Megan Fox, no matter how bad her acting is.
So in closing, I’d like to leave you with this. Someone who knows what Hex is about, the how and why he was created the way he was. Most importantly is when he was created, the draw that was taken from the movies from the times, and how that original design has been carried on since. This is why the new movie doesn’t work. Not because of any vapid Hollywood starlet, but because the character was misused, and Hollywood decided they don’t care what movies they make anymore.
http://www.comicsalliance.com/2010/06/22/jonah-hex-movie-review
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