Director: Jimmy Hayward
Stars: Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, Megan Fox, Michael Fassbender
Jonah Hex, first introduced in the comic book All-Star Western back in 1972, is a unique character: An anti-heroic, horribly disfigured bounty hunter, riding the trails of the old west in adventures that gravitate towards the strange. He meets his share of standard cattle-rustlers and bank robbers, but occasionally he'll run into a zombie or Lovecraftian beast. It's no wonder that soon after his first appearance, he dominated All-Star Western, which was retitled Weird Western Tales. He's appeared in two separate series since, and in various other mini-series and DC Comics crossovers. He's not an institution like Spider-Man, but he's developed his own little fan club over the years. Makes sense that a movie might be made.
There are two main obstacles with a Jonah Hex movie. One, he's uglier than sin. They solved this problem by casting the uber-handsome Josh Brolin, and by slightly de-uglifying him (He keeps the jaw exposing wound on his mouth, but loses the bulging eye). Two, he's a former Confederate soldier. Now, there's a large portion of the population that would have NO problem with that (Even in the Yankee state that I live), but it's a contentious enough issue that it has to be addressed. Problem solved; Lance Reddick appears as the Q to Brolin's Bond, and has some obligatory "But you don't like slavery, Jonah!" dialogue.
This was a troubled production from the start. After being hired to direct, writers Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (of Crank fame) left due to creative differences, leading to Horton Hears A Who director Jimmy Hayward signing on. After production was finished, WB sent Francis Lawrence in to do some massive reshoots. The end result is a movie that's barely over an hour long, and has characters played by some impressive actors (Will Arnett, Michael Shannon) who vanish about as fast as they're introduced. Clearly, this is a case of too many cooks sullying the stew. But is it completely ruined?
There's some fun to be had here, I believe. The plot revolves around Jonah Hex seeking revenge on the man who killed his family, former Confederate general Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich). Turnbull, meanwhile, has stolen a WMD that was designed by Eli Whitney, and plans on using it to rain terror down on the US government. Jonah, being able to speak to the dead (If there's a precedent for that in the comics, I'm unaware of it), uses their knowledge to ascertain Turnbull's whereabouts. Megan Fox is the hooker with the heart of gold. Shit blows up.
One thing that I really enjoyed was seeing this incredible cast in an extremely goofy movie; compare it to the experience of watching the John Huston directed Casino Royale, or Radioland Murders. Arnett, Reddick, Shannon, Brolin, Malkovich, Aiden Quinn and Jeffrey Dean Morgan all give enjoyable performances (In Michael Shannon's case, it's for about half a second). My boy Michael Fassbender easily steals the movie as the bowler-hatted mad Irish henchman of Turnbull. He understands how ludicrous the film is, and gives a performance on par with Colin Farrell's energetic turn as Bullseye in the Daredevil movie.
The film looks pretty enough, shot by Transformers and GI Joe cinematographer Mitchell Amundsen. And the score is agreeable; a collaboration between Marco Beltrami and rock group Mastodon. The main problems are the too fast, choppy editing; the too epic villain, who seems more appropriate for a Wild Wild West movie; and the serious lack of character development, which causes you to be pretty detached from the proceedings.
An entertaining mess of a film, but as a narrative. . . not so great.
Frederick Opines: MIDDLING
No comments:
Post a Comment