Jonah Hex (2010)

Directed by: Jimmy Hayward
Written by: Mark Neveldine, Brian Taylor, and William Farmer
Cast: Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett

The troubles of Jonah Hex start with his involvement with a confederate troop led by the grim Quentin Turnbull during the United States Civil War. Jonah balks at Turnbull's brutal methods and abandons the troop in such a way that it leads to the death of Turnbull's son. Turnbull gets revenge by burning Jonah's family alive and horribly maiming Jonah before leaving him tied up and left for dead. Jonah is lucky, however, and is picked up by some local Indians, who nurse him back from Death's door, and thus give him an opportunity to set out for revenge against the savagery of Quentin Turnbull.

The above may sound like the first act - it's not. This is all laid out in Jonah Hex in about two minutes as an introduction, narrated by the voice of Jonah and supported by comic strip style panel drawings. This rapid exposition ends on the note that Jonah's quest to kill Turnbull abruptly ends when he finds Turnbull has died in an unrelated hotel fire. So, with nothing else to do, Jonah becomes a bounty hunter. "But wait!" says the film ten minutes later, "Turnbull is actually alive, and the hotel fire was a ruse. Jonah restarts his quest to kill Turnbull!"

If you're wondering why the film had Turnbull supposedly die in a hotel fire, only to not actually be dead at all ten minutes later, then welcome to the tone of the entire film. Jonah Hex is a mess of epic proportions; a hackneyed attempt to create a story by stitching together unrelated bits of nonsense to create a retarded Frankenstein with a 10-gallon hat. Jonah Hex, pound for pound, leaves more questions unanswered than ABC's Lost, and at a fraction of the entertainment value.

Jonah Hex's brush with death, and subsequent revival by the Indians, somehow imbues him a supernatural ability to commune with the dead. The curious part about this is why don't all the other people who nearly die, but don't, get special abilities? This was the time of the American Civil War - it's not like brushes with death were uncommon. You might have a brush with death on your way to the corner store to get some licorice. You might stumble upon a brush with death while putting on your shoes. Brushes with death, not to mention "real" death, were everywhere during this time of the nation, so much that it certainly wasn't unique or special in any way.

So, maybe it was the Indians who gave him the special powers. But why would they help him at all? And who the hell are these Indians anyway? This brush with death wasn't Jonah Hex's only brush with death - he also manages to get shot again later in the film, and somehow the same Indians show up to save him. I guess it's just what Indians did back then; wander around, pick up people who are suffering brushes with death, take them to their magical teepee, and smoke weed with them until they get back up. What a wonderful culture.

But why Jonah even had to get shot later in the film is a question all of its own. In the opening action scenes, he easily dodges bullets. A bad guy will shoot and Jonah does one of those nifty shoulder jerks, and the bullet whizzes past him, leaving him safe. He even snaps his head around as if he's watching the bullet whiz past him. Why does he forget how to dodge bullets in the third act? Maybe he missed the Indians?

But the supernatural abilities he picks up aren't enough - oh no. He also gets a couple super toys from a friendly black smith, named "Smith", who makes things like high powered horse mounted Gatling guns and wrist mounted semi-automatic crossbows that fire dynamite sticks. Why this Smith exists, just who the hell he is, and why he gives expensive doodads to Jonah are never really discussed.

The most ridiculous weaponry, however, doesn't really lay on the side of Jonah. Turnbull also has his share of unexplained mega-nonsense. Somehow, he comes up with a Gatling cannon - not a Gatling gun - but a Gatling cannon. But it's not just a Gatling cannon - oh no! It fires six or so big cannon balls at a target, which just land with a kerplump and lay there, doing nothing. Then, it fires a smaller ball that looks like a radioactive orange, and when it hits, it somehow makes all the cannon balls explode, and then everything blows up and dies. This entire contraption is mounted on a giant ironclad and is loaded via a complicated mechanism of levers, gears, and ramps that would look right at home in a Bugs Bunny industrial sequence with Raymond Scott Quintette's Powerhouse as the musical score. Now - you might see this coming - they never really explain just where the hell he came up with this Gatling cannon, or where the hell he came up with the glowy balls from Krypton, or even where the hell he came up with a thousand ton ironclad to mount it on!

A special note about Megan Fox: she has the emotional range of a boiled lobster. She has three facial expressions - plain, smiling, and mildly annoyed - and she uses one of these three to fit any given situation. Most of the time she goes with "plain"; this fits 90% of all scenes in which she appears. When she's supposedly happy with her love interest, Jonah Hex, she goes with "smile". When she's wrestling with experienced killers with large knives who want to carve her guts out, she pulls the "mildly annoyed" face. That's it. That's her entire acting range. The woman's a disaster and needs to stop being in movies, at least if said movies want to stop sucking.

One of the more curious features of the script is the way it struggles to echo current world situations. Quentin Turnbull is said to be called the "Terrorista" by some, and he also uses suicide bombers with dynamite belts as shock troops. He's on a quest to destroy "America". Why his mindless drones of soldiers are still following him is another good question - yet they do, with as much stupid fervor as the Monarch's Henchmen of the Venture Brothers. There is also a vague statement about race, but the statement is as confused as the rest of the film and isn't really worth being addressed beyond pointing at it. /point.

The editing of the film is thoroughly confused with many scenes feeling awkward and out of balance. The worst of these is in the showdown between Jonah and Turnbull. For some inexplicable reason, there are two showdowns - one in the "real" world that is more action and explosion oriented, and one in what I suppose is the 'Elemental Plain of Death' that is hand-to-hand melee combat. The showdown sequence is made up of rapid edits between these two separate battles. If this wasn't confusing enough, they also edit in rapid flashbacks to Turnbull burning Jonah's home and burning his face. Three sequences jumbled together, and it's hard to care about even a one. It's just a pitiable wreck.

I realize the film is meant to be rather tongue-in-cheek. This is pretty obvious at the end when Jonah is invited to be the new "Sheriff of America"; which he, of course, turns down. The problem is Jonah Hex took the tongue, pierced the cheek, and gave itself a wet willy. Howard the Duck was also tongue-in-cheek - and may have even been a better film. Consider yourself warned.

This is a Day Two Review.

Rating: (1 out of 5):