JONAH HEX Post Release

I remember posting on here when they were talking about re-shoots that the word down here in New Orleans while it was being filmed was that it was an unmitigated disaster.

The director had no clue whatsoever, according to some crewmembers. Guess they were right.

Whoa, that's very harsh. It wasn't looking good, but i didn't expect that kind of disaster.

Glad to hear Fassbender doesn't disappoint. Might rent it down the line just for him.

Devin, I have a comedian friend named Jen Kober. She was cast as a prostitute in the film. In her big scene her throat is slashed by John Malkovich and she dies in Megan Fox's arms. Did that scene make it into the film?

You know what I just realized this movie seems like? One of those terrible, half-baked, generic, brain-dead comic book action SF films from a very specific period in the mid-90s. Like Judge Dredd or Last Action Hero or Batman Forever or RoboCop 3. Or Wild Wild West, but that was kind of a late entry in those sweepstakes.

Holy shit, when I read "imaginary fistfight" I blinked and rubbed my eyes, but no, apparently it wasn't a typo. That next paragraph had me laughing pretty hard.

Well, that's crap. She wasn't sure if her scene(s) had made it or not. Thanks for the info.

Oh goddddddddd an IMAGINARY FIST FIGHT during a 'real' fist fight.

This imaginary fight sounds like the original ending of the movie. In the script I read, there was no super weapon/exploding boat stuff. From what I remember, Turnbull's whole "Assembling an army to invade Washington" thing was a ruse to gain political power. Jonah eventually messes things up for Turnbull and the movie ends with a fight at "Red Clay", the place where Turnbull's son was killed.

I guess they just threw that fight in there so the movie wasn't less than an hour.

Sounds better than GHOSTRIDER already.

Guess Tom Jane really dodged a bullet here..

Yeah, I also couldn't believe what I was reading. That's so beyond a terrible idea. What a confusing sounding mess. Thanks for taking one for the team, Devin. At least we got a funny review out of it.

I knew this movie was going to be shit-on-toast when I saw the first trailer for it. Good to know I was right.

I would almost watch this for Fassbender.

Almost.

But then I'm reminded that I could just watch something like Fish Tank instead.

I gotta ask -- are we talking bad like Captain America bad?

No surprise that this is a failure. A gritty, super-natural western directed by a guy who's only other credit is the animated Horton Hears A Who?

The studio seems to be following the same "idea so stupid it's GOTTA work" logic that gave us Van Sant's Psycho.

Oh, and hind-sight being 20/20, Fassbender would've made a ridiculously kickass JH.

One question I have is in regards to the soundtrack, is that at least interesting or was the inclusion of Mastodon utterly pointless.

I didn't hate it the way Devin did, but it's definitely a mess. I was a little more amused by Brolin and some of the action beats, and I actually kind of liked the imaginary fistfight because it felt Neveldine/Taylor-ish (Hex literally rising from the ground seemed unmistakably Crank-like).

Interesting that it was originally the movie's ending. I would've bet dollars to donuts that the live-action scene where the Indians resurrect Hex used to come at the beginning, and the part where he burns himself was from that segment, and they just hastily reshot a few angles to make it fit in the middle. Knowing the ending fight was totally juggled and changed lends a bit of credence to this thought. Instead, there's an exceptionally shitty-looking animated sequence at the start and a whole bunch of bad voiceover.

Sad that Wes Bentley has fucked his career so much he can't even get his own stand-alone credit over Michael Shannon, who is on screen 75% less than he is.

Sometimes I love bad movies just because nobody writes a pan like Devin. He has a way of crystallizing what doesn't work so perfectly that you can enjoyably imagine it, and laugh at it, without actually having to sit through it.

This is the last DC movie that isn't directly overseen by DC Entertainment and Geoff Johns, right? To bad they wasted a character with so much potential, not to mention that cast, for the last one. I agree with Drew's assessment from a few weeks back that with Red Dead Redemption fever currently running wild in the geek community, a fun Western with good characters and action could become a sleeper hit.

How was Will Arnett in it?

Present and accounted for.

^ Barely there. Though, not nearly as barely there as Michael Shannon. Talk about hacking a character to pieces, he's seen for about 1.5 seconds, and you hear him for about 10 seconds.

Also, the Mastodon/Marco Beltrami soundtrack is the one saving grace of this movie.


EDIT: And was I going crazy or was Jeb Turnbull played by Jeffrey Dean Morgan? I don't see him listed on iMDb as being in the movie. Or that character even listed.

In the script, the Indian resurrection thing came after Jonah was shot by Turnbull's men. And I'm pretty sure the tomahawk scene was a flashback that came before the "RED CLAY" fight.

Bentley (who was once rumored to be Peter Parker) is in this and GHOSTRIDER? LULZ

Huh. Because I love what Palmiotti and crew have done with the character, I had muted hopes for this flick. If nothing else, I had hoped it was going to be 2010's GI Joe: something reviled up until it's release whereupon folks realized it was kinda fun. Oh, well. Thanks for the review, Dev.

That's what you get for dancing with bags, motherfucker.

Jake, someday you will learn that there's this incredibly benevolent force. It wants you to know there is no reason to be afraid, ever.

Amanda Seyfried?

I thought that when they were fighting but then when they were actually talking I felt pretty sure it wasn't him. I mean Weed Road was responsible for The Losers, so it's possible, but this guy looked a good deal younger than Morgan.

I checked the full cast and crew, and some guy is listed as the stunt double for Dean Morgan. So, looks like it was him, but no credit? Weird.

I read in an interview that Jeffrey Dean Morgan is in it.
I think he worked for a day and basically did it for free.

I think Bentley's downfall had more to do with bags of heroin.

It's amazing how he always seems to play characters that get killed.

Jonah Hex is not just good, it is...HEXcellent! Clearly, it is...Josh Brolin's best film! There are only...2 negatives. It should have been longer and it is a shame that there will not likely be a sequel. Megan Fox, was also quite good as yet another...Hooker with a heart of gold. John Malkovich and Michael Fassbender were properly...EEEEEEEEEEEEEvil, as Turnbull and Burke, respectively. Jonah Hex is now...My Favorite Western, and I cannot wait for it to arrive on DVD.

There were trailers for 2...Eminently skippable films...Scott Pilgrim and Inception.

Fleed liikes it = not seeing it

thanks fleed!!!!

Glad to see the CHUD boards have their own version of Armond White.

theconstant, I remember reading a few posts about...Mr White, but I cannot remember who he is.

NickP, You're Welcome!

Duke, do you agree with this review?

http://www.nypress.com/article-21356-jonah-hex.html

anytime my friend. You are my go to guy for films I shouldn't go see.

MoonBaseNick, I cannot agree with the review, as Mr. White only gave Jonah Hex...1 1/2 stars. I do agree with his concept, of Jonah Hex the...Crank of the western genre!

NickP, It is good to be...The Go To Guy for somthing.

While Jonah Hex isn't the worst Western I've ever seen, I don't think it'll be inspiring a Western revival anytime soon -- unless a group of talented filmmakers actually see this movie as the last straw and decide that something must be done to restore the genre to its proper glory. Devin gave it a 2 out of 10; I would give it a 7, although as I type that, I realize it's probably a bit too generous a score. The fact that another director was brought on for reshoots may explain why this movie seems to have absolutely nothing to say. Not every Western has to be Unforgiven, but it wouldn't hurt to try.

Although I was initially glad they cast Josh Brolin as Hex; I have to say that I was disappointed in his performance. The serious Hex doesn't seem to resonate as suitably badass as he should, although when he's acting goofier (with the dog, for example) that side of Jonah Hex feels just right. As Devin said in his review, it's like Hayward had no idea how to make a cool movie. I know jack shit about lighting and mise en scene, but when your Western has that phony period, totally generic Van Helsing look, something's wrong. The facial prosthetic also seemed to be impairing Brolin's acting -- although they'd risk accusations of "watering down" Hex, the filmmakers might have been better off with a less grotesque scar.

The worst offender in this movie is John Malkovich. He is absolutely HORRIBLE in this movie -- unless you want to argue that he meant for Turnbull's motivation for domestic terrorism to be pure and utter boredom. Otherwise, it just looked like Malkovich just wanted to get back to his trailer as soon as possible.

Megan Fox is surprisingly okay in this movie. While I prefer my Western movie whores to look like Megan Fox or Claudia Cardinale rather than those more historically accurate Unforgiven chicks, she is woefully miscast. She's not the right match for Hex/Brolin. She needs to be romancing a young gunslinger in a different Western, not some older disfigured dude.

I will add to the chorus that Michael Fassbender is excellent in the very few scenes he had in the film. He's the only character who seems to be immune to the film's inordinately clunky filmmaking technique. Watch for a scene between him and Malkovich in which he seems to be acting on a completely different plane of reality than the near-comatose Malkovich. It's really quite amusing.

I did not recognize Tom Wopat at all.

I think the film's major problems occur during the first reel. In the comics, Jonah Hex surrenders to the North after seeing some horrible shit go down when his Reb pals brutally suppress a slave uprising. Jonah's pal, Jeb Turnbull., is a big dumb WASP who nevertheless supports his buddy's decision and they part as friends. Jonah turns himself in, but remains tight-lipped about his compatriots' whereabouts. However, the Union soldiers are able to find the Confederate camp thanks to the "red clay" they notice on Hex's boots. Long story short, a number of things happen which paint Hex as a traitor.

I don't think filmmakers need to be slavishly faithful to the source text, but when they do change things, it needs to be better. To substitute "not wanting to burn a hospital" (with innocent white folks inside, I presume) in place of a Rebel suddenly becoming conscious of racial inequality is a generic and rather poor substitution, in my opinion. His time as a Rebel is barely depicted. The early scenes with Jonah Hex in the Confederacy are presented in montage form, complete with voiceover, although what we see isn't quite coherent in terms of content or simple geography. We don't even meet Jeb Turnbull (the great Jeffrey Dean Morgan)! It would've been nice to see Hex's friendship with him and how they actually ended up drawing down on each other. Instead, it's presented via exposition in a scene that Morgan and Brolin do their damnedest to sell, but would've been far more emotional if we'd met the character earlier! My question is, were the Confederacy scenes always meant to be dialogue-free montage stuff? Or was there actually a first act that let these scenes play? And if so, did they suck so bad that it had to be truncated?

As to making changes to the original material, it's fine that they give Jonah a Josey Wales-like origin; in many ways this is the only time the movie successfully applies the "simple is better" maxim. However, the murder happens so fast I didn't feel ANYTHING. It's not until late in the film that we get to see a little bit of his home life leading up to their deaths (via a near-death flashback). While I'm all for flashbacks as gradual reveals, this isn't a "reveal," it's a fleshing out of material that was much more important to have earlier. From a dramatic standpoint, dropping this stuff in later is pretty stupid. The only reason NOT to show it is to hide the ethnicity of Hex's wife and "half-breed" son -- and that's a pretty small payoff for the standard Native American "heal Whitey" scene. If we saw Jonah and his family immediately after the WB/various production company logos, it might've been a helluva "cold open" to the movie. It would've provided just enough information for you to care, but began with a mystery that would be revealed in time. Again, I'm wondering if there was more of this footage. And if so, was it simply cut because it was bad? Or structurally, did the script suck from day one?

And finally, the red clay dream "imaginary fight." This is completely baffling during the movie, and what's worse, is it looks AMAZING compared to the lackluster, steampunk fight scene, in which Hex tries to stop Malkovich from shooting his "golden balls of death" on Washington (Hmm..Turnbull was the first "Teabagger"). What's astonishing is that Malkovich actually looks a bit spry in this scene, but again, it's all wrong -- it's a fistfight. The scene is framed to look like a supernatural version of a Leone duel, a red circle of dirt with a coffin in the middle (with a crow on it!). The fact that there is not ONE gunfight duel in this movie is beyond baffling.

And don't get me started on those goddamn horse gatling guns.

Maybe this sounds more like a 2 out of 10, than a 7 out of 10 review, but there were some things I liked. It's just the "bad" is much easier to talk about.

Damn, this was a long post.

Fleed, I both love and loathe you. The fact that you exist makes my time on CHUD better, but everything you say makes me want to slaughter a million baby seals. I don't understand how those two feelings both reside in me.

But if anyone here still thinks this is actually a real person, that last line there proved you are the most well thought-out character on these here boards. No real human being could ever say such a thing.

It's a godawful movie but the moment that Ulysses Grant presents Jonah with the hub cap sized "Sheriff of the entire USA" badge is a truly magnificent cinematic moment. It's just so absurd and idiotic. It really made me love the movie.

To those who've seen it - what was the point of Hex chatting with Jeffery Dean? Ostensibly he needed info on Malokovich's location, but when he woke him up they just chatted about old times. It was completely worthless.

And what was up with so many of Fox's close-ups being shot in that horrible, terrible cgi enhanced soft-focus?

I sat through this due to being a Fassbender completist. And with all it's flaws this was still better than Blood Creek. Bring on Centurion...

Was searching Amazon for Jonah Hex graphic novels and saw this:

Jonah Hex Deluxe Child's Costume

Can't believe this exists.

Colin Farrell v.2.0, I liked the conversation between...Jeb and Hex. Hex, was...Dying to get that off his chest, so he resurrected his old friend, to do that. It allowed Hex, to feel content after he avenged the deaths of his loved ones, by making peace with the guy he killed.

MatthewH, I am not a...character, I am a person, one who loves the film...Jonah Hex, and cannot get even...partially excited for the...Ho Hum, looking Scott Pilgrim and Inception. I am however looking forward to the film Nolan is making after...Inception, which is...Batman 3.