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Much has been said about Jonah Hex and little of it was positive. Having watched the movie it’s not hard to see why, but having a low expectation because of the articles, comments and reviews I was expecting much worse.
Jonah Hex is a western but this being based on a graphic novel it wouldn’t be complete without some superhero powers and so Jonah Hex has the ability to talk to the dead by reviving them as long as he touches them, which is probably the ultimate solution for people with grieving problems though it would generate al lot of literal skeletons in peoples’ closets.
Of course every hero has a villain and in this case it’s Quentin Turnbull play by John Malkovich who doesn’t chew scenery as much as he could have with this part. He is the one responsible for the horrible scarring of Jonah as well as killing his family in front of his eyes. He does this because Jonah killed his brother so they should be even, but nobody ever sees it that way. It’s like Grumpy Old Men in a western setting.
Jonah Hex is a bounty hunter and an outlaw himself but becomes enlisted in the US army after the President requests him to help them stop the previously supposed dead Turnbull who’s planning to build a super weapon and blow up the Capitol Building though I hardly doubt it would stop there if he succeeds. This super weapon is something else; it’s really nothing more than a big cannon shooting really big, well, cannon balls. To make it more special they have these yellow glowing balls who generate really big explosions on impact and is the western equivalent of the atom bomb. Now these glowing balls are never really explained but I did wonder how they shot them out of a cannon without these things exploding then when they clearly explode on impact. It’s not as if they used a slingshot.
Running at only 80 minutes Jonah Hex has a pretty high pacing, high enough to keep your attention. Yet the movie is a bit all over the place and it’s a bit difficult to keep track of what is going and where the action takes place. Especially the showdown between Hex and Turnbull cuts between the battle between them on a ship and some sort of alternate reality version of the same fight in an orange colored desert. It’s probably something the director inserted o give the movie an extra layer but it was merely confusing.
As I stated there has been much written about Jonah Hex and my guess is there will probably be after this review, my other guess is those articles will contain the words remake and not sequel.
