User reviews

Sometimes I wonder if people that reviewed this film actually watched it, or if they gave it a chance, not like second glancing at it because they're cooking dinner at the same time.

Jonah Hex is an entertaining little movie based upon the DC Comic Book character. To be honest, I've never read the comic, had little expectations coming in, and wouldn't have gone to see this in the theater. This genre is admittedly, 'right up my alley'. Usually I check some ratings on here before renting movies so that I avoid the flops. Thankfully, I didn't look on IMDb until AFTER I had already rented it. So when I looked at IMDb's 4.6 user rating AFTER renting it, but BEFORE watching it; my expectations were lowered even further, and I nearly put off watching it, again. Nevertheless, it was due the next day and I popped it in the DVD player when the other-half went to bed(too bad - she would have liked it). I have a good sound system and a nice TV - both made this action/western/fantasy even better.

Let's take a look at some of the films on IMDb with similar user ratings - specifically some of the worst films that I have ever seen/wasted my time and money on.

Ready to Wear(Pret-A-Porter)4.8 Actually rated higher than Jonah Hex. This was two hours I will NEVER get back. A terribly boring movie with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.

King Solomon's Mines 4.6 Tied with Jonah Hex. This may be the worst movie I have ever seen. A literal walk out of the theater. And I know what you're thinking. I talked about giving movies a chance earlier, but I revisited KSM years later, and it still remains the worst film I've ever seen in my lifetime, 1 and a half times.

Toys 4.6 Enough said.

Jonah Hex' style is true to the comic book theme. The opening of the film is excellent, and gives us a good foundation for an entertaining storyline. John Malkovich is ALWAYS a good adversary/bad guy, and Josh Brolin IS Jonah Hex. Megan Foxes' role is small, and she serves every purpose, much like a smoking hot Bond girl. Her Body alone makes this film worth 4.6.

But, Jonah Hex is much more. It's interesting, it's action packed, and it's well-paced.

Now, is it believable? No. What comic book based film is? Is it Oscar worthy? No. Will it appear on any legitimate 2010 Top Ten lists? No. Jonah Hex is the pure definition of a popcorn flick. Not just one that rare movie watchers might over-rate(It's no nine or ten), and one that critics will annihilate, but one that is sure to surprise many who give it a chance. It's worth the rental - especially if you have a TV and sound system that can give you a near theater experience. I like some of the subtle touches to this movie, and Malkovich and Brolin really help the cause.

58/100

You'll like it if you liked: Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer, Brotherhood of the Wolf, and Timecop.

First, I want to mention some of the good stuff. Josh Brolin is excellent as Hex, perfect casting, great job by Brolin, thoroughly enjoyable to watch. John Malkovich was very good in a role that could have easily been too over the top to be taken seriously. Fassbender was genuinely creepy, Jeffrey Dean Morgan was great, and Megan Fox looks gorgeous and her acting is not that bad. Combine that with an amazing soundtrack by Mastodon, (and a surprise cameo by Brent Hinds) I have to say I enjoyed the movie. The negatives: "The Weapon" - a weird, quasi-science, completely unexplained "nation-killer" invented by Eli Whitney... WTF? Stupid. While on the subject, why does the world have to be at stake? A simple revenge tale would have sufficed. Aidan Quinn was awful, but it probably wasn't his fault, unless he wrote his own lines. Why tell Hex's backstory with a couple of minutes of poorly animated crap with a voice-over when they could've filmed Hex's origin sequence and made it a much better movie? No idea, but I can't explain many of the choices that were made on this movie. Why was it only 80 minutes long? Who thought that was a good idea? Who cast Will Arnett in a straight role? I kept waiting for him to do something funny. To sum it up, there was some really good work done on this movie, but there were too many terrible decisions made that left it a disjointed mess in spite of its potential. As a life-long Jonah Hex fan, I was happy to see him captured so perfectly by Brolin, but disappointed as hell that the studio screwed up the movie so badly, and ruined any chance of this becoming a successful franchise.

I'm a fan of comics and westerns so even though I knew of Jonah Hex in name only this was something I knew I could probably at least sit through. I've seen some reviews and they seem a little harsh. It wasn't anything special but it moved a long fairly quickly and I wasn't bored for what that's worth.

I agree with others that Brolin was a good choice for Hex. I was glad to see Malkovich there but he seemed a tad underwhelming. I think he's a great actor so I trust he nailed the character though. Will Arnett stuck out like a sore thumb in the small number of scenes he was in. He's a goofy, funny guy I just don't really want to see him in a serious role. You almost can't tell if he's for real or being sarcastically serious. Megan Fox is Megan Fox. Why people are complaining so much about her acting I have no idea. She's there for sex appeal. No one thinks she's the next coming of Meryl Streep or something.

The movie looked a little too synthetic for me especially some of the "ultimate weapon" stuff. It looked a little too clean for a western too. I don't know why some movies like There Will Be Blood can look so authentic and suck you in to the setting but others like this just look too fake.

I figured there would be some fantastic elements involved even though it was grounded in real life, just because of the comic influence. That might have prepared me a little more for the stuff others might have found to be out of place. In fairness movies are a little bit like watching a sporting event for the first time. If you don't know the rules or know what to expect you're likely to not enjoy it much. After the first 5 minutes or so I figured as much to not be jarred by some of the more out of place plot elements, so all in all I thought it was a short, somewhat entertaining movie. Glad it wasn't much longer though.

This paint by numbers western revenge comic flick is certainly not offensive or ineffective to deserve such a negative buzz. 

Jonah Hex's family is killed. Scarred and back from the dead, he finds his families killer is dead. Feeling robbed of his revenge he becomes a bounty hunter but when America is put under threat he may just get his revenge after all. 

A star studded cast that includes Josh Brolin, John Malkovich and modern day starlet Megan Fox. With familiar faces  like Wes Bentley (P2) Michael Fassbender and Aidan Quinn to name a few.  It's mild mix of Outlaw Josey Wales (1976),  Wild, Wild West (1999) and Ghost Rider (2007). To it's credit it had great sets, location and make up with a competently written script and a great score taking it's queue from Once Upon a Time in the West (1968) and is reminiscent of many great westerns.

It's well directed by Jimmy Hayward and the lighting compliments the atmosphere, especially in the night time scenes.  It has lots of action and is laced with humour, the few supernatural elements coupled with some gun play keep it interesting and Hex is far from the turkey you may have been lead to believe. It's a dark comic adventure which is quite easy to swallow, and should be for the amount of talent and budget.  

With its short running time Hex is not as good, bad or ugly as Jonah lovers or critics would lead you to believe.

I'm hesitant to call this an out and out terrible movie as some have labelled it simply because it was mildly entertaining. There's a lot of action, some cool ideas, a great performance by Josh Brolin and the short 80 minute running time doesn't hurt it either.

The sad truth of the whole thing is that it just didn't come close to its potential. For starters, Jonah Hex didn't have to be macabre and supernatural...to my knowledge this wasn't even part of the original comic books that the movie is based on. The original story is simple, Jonah Hex's family is murdered, he's horribly scarred and left for dead. He gets better and sets out for revenge. It's a pretty classic western tale...one that we've seen before but given the general lack of western movies these days, that doesn't matter...there's plenty of room in theatres for a fun out for revenge Western. Having said all that, the supernatural ideas that they came up with are actually kinda cool, and I would've been happy to see them mixed in, if only they'd been handled better. Instead these elements seem tossed in as an excuse to include CG effects that the box office loves oh so much.

The end result is an unfortunate mash up of a good ideas...that maybe could've worked if more time had been put into development, it feels like it was either slapped together too hastily or suffered from a massive reedit...during most of the film I couldn't shake the feeling that there was maybe a 2 hour+ director's cut lying on the floor somewhere which may or may not be a superior and more coherent film. I was looking forward Jonah Hex based on a short appearance he had in a Batman cartoon years ago...from that alone I thought the character had a lot of movie potential but I was let down. Brolin's performance is the best part of the movie. Malkovich is good but nothing too spectacular considering his track record, and even Megan Fox is half decent but she doesn't have a lot to do with her pretty much useless character.

Oh my god, what was I thinking to watch this film with my brother. I cannot believe I paid any money at all to watch this rubbish film.

THE BAD:

Megan Fox's acting

A script so bad that the writers should go back to 3rd grade. The movie is a mess. Very Noisy. Lacks imagination. Completely forgettable. I mean I could go on all day.

The only thing good about this movie is Josh Brolin, he gives a good performance as Jonah Hex, he tries to save this complete mess of a film. But sadly its too much of a bloated mess to save. I truly feel bad for him.

As for Megan Fox, she better start having some acting lessons, cause this movie has the potential to absolutely sent her career to the grave. After loosing her role in Transformers 3, she desperately needs to do something.

I can only give this movie 3 stars because Brolin, who you can see tried really hard and was successful portraying Jonah Hex. Its just sad that Jonah Hex was there, but the movie itself wasn't.

3/10

Analysis Paralysis!

It was fun. Everyone did a competent job. It's not a movie for intellectuals, just for people who enjoy flicks. As more people see it, its rating will go up. It's now 4.3/10 with 1,266 votes. Watch.

I really enjoyed that the special F/X were not overdone.

It's a comic book fer cryin' out loud!, it's not supposed to be No Country for Old Men!

I was never bored, it was well paced.

That whole business with the dead people was fun and nice plot enhancer.

I really don't know what all the negative fuss it about.

It's not a summer blockbuster, it's a summer popcorn and soda, better-than-T.V. techno western flick.

Actually, my expectations were so diminished by all the bad press that I enjoyed it More that I expected I would.

As I read all the detailed bad press and saw what over analysis was in the comments, and discounted all that, that's what put me over the edge to go and see it.

And I'm glad I did.

It was fun.

No one's careers were ruined. Just briskly moving summer fun.

Starts off as an excercise in mediocrity and cliché but manages to sink even lower as the film's (thankfully short) running time comes to a close.

What a shame. The original Neveldine and Taylor script (which I only read half of because I didn't want to spoil myself silly) was actually quite good. Episodic in the way that Hex gets himself into bizarre jams (much like the original 70's comic) on the road to the film's Macguffin.

One such jam being he runs into a town where the occupants have all been lobotomized.

Unfortunately, none of that makes it to the final film and although a lot of the film was cut down I don't believe they filmed even 90% of what was in that script.

What remains of the N & T script is the Gatling gun sequence (albeit without the gore) and the arena sequence (heavily reworked and, ultimately, uninteresting).

There are one or two shots where Hex is riding through the countryside at night. I'd like to know if any other IMDBers were having trouble making out what was going on in those shots. Poorly lit.

Have cinematographers forgotten to lens a night scene in westerns? All "day for night" jokes aside, this is terrible. I never thought I would see such an eye strainingly dim scene in a big budgeted Hollywood picture.

Shameful.

As for the charisma vacuum that is Megan Fox, she's surprisingly substantial in her introductory scene but falls into familiar territory, for her (empty expression/lifeless), shortly after.

Your typical action film based on a comic, but with some surprising elements. It had some macabre features (where jonah could talk to the dead and he obtained quick reflexes after a near death experience) and though megan fox had a mediocre roll she had her moments where her acting overdid her role in Transformers. (not quite a accomplishment, but still...)

If you haven't read the comic and maybe not biased by expectations, you most likely like this one. It has all the elements for a good action film and the his personal crusade with his nemesis general turnbull makes it worthwhile to watch.

IMDb rates it with a poor 4,6 I rate it with a 6,5 (G.O.O.S.) ( for the original effects and surprisingly OK acting from megan fox and entertaining storyline)

I used to enjoy the Jonah Hex comics until they tried to make it science fictiony and sent him to the future. This movie stank on ice. They at least kept the timeline in the Civil War instead of sending Hex to the future but then they made it steampunk so this rendition reminds me of the pure garbage masquerading as a "Wild Wild West" movie. Say what you will about comics but the Jonah Hex tales made a semblance of sense in their setting albeit weird sense with a tinge of the occult.

To rebut a prior review, I wouldn't even call this a popcorn flick because it made me lose any taste or desire for popcorn. It retains nothing of the Weird Western aspect of the classic Jonah Hex tales nor the pre-SF Hex tales and machinery in the end scene just makes no sense in scale, logistics, mechanics, or effect.

I will agree with the prior review that Megan Fox is worth 4.6 ... but that's about it and the rest of the film earns negative points.

"Once they realized its potential, they decided that they could not fathom willfully visiting that kind of devastation on their fellow man. But I can."

I've (unfortunately) seen some truly awful movies this year. Jonah Hex may not be the worst of them, but it may well be the one that it appears the least amount of effort went into. From the story, to the editing, to the action scenes and dialogue, it just seems like none of those involved could be bothered to try to make anything worthwhile from this.

I have no experience with the Jonah Hex character, so I really had no expectations of what this movie should be - beyond a possibly fun supernatural action/western. What I got was a nonsensical bore. I couldn't wait for it to be over, despite how short it is. The casting is inexplicably absurd (GOB, really?). There's nothing complimentary I can say about it, beyond the fact that John Malkovich managed to somehow give a decent performance in this mess, and Megan Fox looked incredibly sexy. For the brief ten minutes or so that she's in the movie, anyway. 

My advice? Skip this. It's bad. No matter how much you like Brolin, Malkovich, or the other actors, or how sexy you think Megan Fox is, Jonah Hex is not worth your time. It fails as a comic adaptation, a western, an action flick, and most of all, it fails as entertainment.

This fantastic/terror/science-fiction/Western deals with a disfigured gunslinger named Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) , a scarred bounty hunter with warrants on his own head , he is wanted dead or alive , reward 50.000 dollars . President Grant (Aidan Quinn) is informed of the train massacre by Lieutenant Grass (Will Arnett) and surmises that Turnbull plans to attack the Union on the Fourth of July (the country centennial). Grass is told to find Jonah and hire him to stop Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich) . The U.S.A. President and his assistant make an offer he cannot refuse: in exchange for his freedom, he must stop a terrorist who is ready to unleash Hell on Earth by means of an atomic bomb . After that , Jonah goes to a brothel and spends the night with Lilah (Megan Fox), a bitch attracted to the scarred gunfighter for more than just professional interest . Later on , Jonah heads to Fort Resurrection and Independence Harbor , Virginia , looking for the ominous criminal Quentin .

This moving picture blends action , western, shootouts, fantastic elements with hallucinogenics shots , besides a little bit violence. The final confrontation amongst the starring and contenders on the ship is overblown with amazing and stirring images . The storyline from Brian Tyler and Navaldine based on original comic books characters appearing in magazines published by DC Comics and created by John Albano & Tony DeZuniga , though the drawings are much better, thus the film is some boring and isn't well paced . The story bears certain resemblance to ¨Blueberry¨(2004) by Jean Kounen in similar style, theme , scenarios and hallucinatory special effects created by Ariel Velasco Shaw . The motion picture obtained limited success, as United States as Europe failed at box office . Exciting musical score fitting to action by Marco Beltrani . Colorful though dark cinematography by Amundsen , mostly filmed in New Orleans , Louisiana. Jimmy Hayward direction is mediocre , without originality and nothing new to show , being a simple copy based on the comic books. Hayward is an expert on Animation Department in charge of ¨Toys 2¨, ¨Bugs¨, ¨Monsters S.A.¨ , ¨Finding Nemo¨ and directed ¨Horton¨ and ¨Jonah Hex¨ this is his first film in real frames . Rating : acceptable and passable . The flick will appeal to peculiar and rare western buffs

I was never a big Jonah Hex fan, but I have a handful of the comics from the 70s and was therefore mildly interested in this cinematic adaption from 2010, especially since Megan Fox looked so good in the promo pics, lol.

"Jonah Hex" reminds me of those gazillions of spaghetti Westerns from the 60s and 70s, like "Django" and Leone's "Man with No Name" trilogy except that it's more modern and entertaining.

To be expected, the atmosphere is very comic booky and the filmmakers do an outstanding job with the title character's hideously scarred face. It's like the comic come to life. Josh Brolin is fine in the eponymous role. On top of this, Megan Fox proves in her peripheral part that she's the foxiest ultra-babe on the face of the planet. Did I already mention this?

At only 82 minutes, the story is simple and the pace is fast, which I don't mind since too many films overstay their welcome. But the writers did strive for some depth and that's commendable. If there was more depth and epic-ness I wouldn't hesitate to raise my rating. As it is, "Jonah Hex" plays like a spaghetti Western that's actually decent. Imagine the style and pizazz of "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" updated to 2010, but half as long, no tedious stretches and less one-dimensional characters and you'd have a pretty good approximation of "Jonah Hex."

One of the film's highlights is the incredible metalized score by Marco Beltrami and none other than Mastodon. The movie's worth seeing for the music alone, no kidding.

The film was shot in Louisiana with some re-shoots in California.

GRADE: B

I am a huge fan of the Jonah Hex comic series. Jonah was originally a thinly veiled but better version of Eastwood's Stranger, and despite the parallels to Josie Wales, pre-dates it by 4 years.

I would have felt much more generous to this movie if it was made with another original character instead of bastardizing and cannibalizing the original source material. There are indeed characters named Hex, Turnbull, and even Megan Fox's Talullah is likely a nod to a character named Talullah Black. But here the similarity ends.

Josh Brolin is just okay as Hex. I thought he could have at least dyed his hair to match the comic. He grumbles most of his dialogue, and the facial appliance does not help his annunciation. I got the feeling that he was phoning this one in. Malkovich as Turnbull seems bored and a bit out of place. He's servicably evil, but not very fleshed out. Megan Fox seems too pretty too wooden and too sassy to be authentic. I did like the 'Snake Man'.

I'll not re-hash all the plot holes as many have already done. They are legion. I will say that this is one of those films where most everything is at night, and it makes it really hard to see anything, especially when paired with the spastic action scenes that seem to be done so fast on purpose so you cant actually see anything.

If you find yourself curious about Hex, seek out any of the mini-series that writer Joe R. Lansdale had a hand in. Here's a quote that shows how he saw Hex: "He was a hero to some, a villain to others, and wherever he rode, men spoke his name in whispers."