Reaction & Review | Jonah Hex

Welcome, one and all, to "Tales of the Longbox" here on Reaction & Review. Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I'm gonna be covering a Western from 2010. That movie is "Jonah Hex".

So, last year, during my previous "Tales of the Longbox" marathon, I reviewed an animated anthology film called "Superman/Shazam!: The Return of Black Adam". And of those four animated shorts that were in that anthology film, one of them focused on the character known as Jonah Hex. And I really enjoyed that short film. So much so that it ended up being the best part of that anthology film for me, mostly because of my love for Westerns. And I stated back then that if DC and Warner Bros. ever wanted to make an animated movie based on this character, I would watch that in an instant.

Well, shortly after I wrote that review, I found out that Warner Bros. actually put out a live-action movie based on Jonah Hex. And when I found that out, I wanted to find a copy of it so I could it cover for this year's "Tales of the Longbox" marathon. Well, I found a copy of it, so now all that's left is to watch the movie. Now, I don't know what the plot is to this movie, because I didn't do very much research going into this thing. I'm going to assume that it's an origin story about Jonah Hex. And if that's the case, then I'm perfectly fine with that. Because I am curious to see how you could pull off a live-action take on this character.

Now, while I didn't do a whole lot of research going into this thing, I did find out a couple of things about it. Not great things, mind you, but they're still worth mentioning. The first thing is that this movie didn't do very well in theaters. Now, I don't know if it was because of a lack of advertising, or if the movie itself wasn't really that good, I don't know. Honestly, though, this is a very minor nothing. Because I've seen plenty of movies that didn't do well in it's theatrical run that I still ended up enjoying. The other thing, though, could be seen as a bit of a red flag. Because one of the stars of this movie is Megan Fox. And Megan Fox, to a lot of people, is known for being a terrible actress. Now admittedly, I haven't really seen a whole lot of movies involving Megan Fox. The only things that come to mind is when she starred in the first 3 Michael Bay "Transformers" movies, and the Ninja Turtles movie from 2014. Now admittedly, it has been a long time since I last watched those movies, so maybe if I watched them again at some point, I might end up seeing for myself how bad she really was in those movies.

But anyway, guys, I'm getting WAY off track here. Point is, she could be seen as a bit of a detriment for this movie. Now, I don't know how much of a role she really has in this movie, but regardless, I am hoping that this movie is still gonna be really fun. And being that it is a Western, it certainly does have that chance. I don't know if it's gonna end up being any good, but I am gonna found out soon enough. So the only way I'm gonna out if this movie is any good at all, is if I shut up, and I push play, and I'm gonna do that right now. So, without further ado, it's time to kick back, relax, and check out "Jonah Hex".

5 minutes later

You know, guys, I'm kinda liking how they're explaining Jonah Hex's backstory through these cutscenes that are done entirely through the style of motion comics. I don't know what it is about it that I like, but it certainly is a nice attention to detail. At least, to me, it is.

3 minutes later

So, Jonah Hex uses machine guns as his weapon of choice. That's fucking awesome! And I'm also kinda shocked that his horse is able to hold that weight, considering that his machine guns are on each side of the horse. Still though, that is fucking cool as hell.

14 minutes later

Guys, I'm just gonna say this right now. So far, the acting has been pretty good from just about the entire cast. The one exception, though, is Megan Fox. OK granted, I wasn't really expecting miracles from her, but I was sorta hoping that she was gonna at least try in this movie. And so far, she really hasn't done that. I'm kinda hoping she'll improve within the next hour or so. Well, depending on how much time she has in this movie anyways.

17 minutes later

I just saw some pistols that were also equipped to look like mini-crossbows. I know I haven't seen these these things in action yet, but is there any way I can get some of those in my possession? Because that just looks both kinda stupid, and yet sorta awesome at the same time. I am curious, though, to see how these guns function in action. Who knows? Maybe they might really suck, or they could be really awesome. Either way, I want those fucking guns.

4 minutes later

Well, guys, I think just reinforced my own point about wanting these guns, because they carry dynamite as it's ammunition. And the way that Jonah Hex is firing them is a thing of beauty. Again, guys, I WANT those fucking guns. They are awesome.

11 minutes later

Well, guys, I just learned something new about Indian medicine. Apparently, if you're someone like Jonah Hex, a crow will come out of your mouth and you'll be all better. I never would've known that, but now I do. It was kinda sick, but still something worth noting.

The Review

Well, guys, that was "Jonah Hex". Let me go ahead and shut the movie off...OK. So, what to begin with? Well, earlier I was curious to see how exactly a live-action "Jonah Hex" movie could work. And you know what? It turned out to be pretty good. I wound up enjoying this thing quite a bit. Mind you, this movie does have some problems, but I'll get into all that momentarily.

Right now, I should probably start this review off by talking about the writing. Our story here is pretty much what you would expect from a lot of comic book movies. In which this movie is an origin story for our titled character. And it's a really solid backstory, which also ties into our main plot. Basically, Jonah's family was murdered by our villain, Turnbull. Who use to be Hex's commanding officer, who wanted Hex to burn down a hospital. However, things turned badly for Turnbull, as Hex ended up killing Jeb, AKA Turnbull's son, who use to be a friend of Jonah Hex during the war. Which in turn, causes Turnbull to track down Jonah's family, and ended up killing his family by setting Hex's house on fire while also leaving a burn mark on Hex's face. And after being saved from near death by some Indians, Jonah ends up getting supernatural powers in which he can talk to the dead. And afterwards, Jonah ends up on a quest to track down Turnbull and get his revenge. The only problem, though, is that Turnbull ended up killing himself, thus stopping Jonah from getting his revenge on Turnbull. Now admittedly, I haven't read the Jonah Hex comics, so I have no idea how much of this is accurate or if it's even loyal to the character, but I will say that what is here works pretty well. And you do end up caring about Jonah Hex in this movie, in which you would hope that he does end up getting revenge against Turnbull and finally avenge his family. And then you later learn that not only is he out for revenge, but he also has to stop Turnbull from being able to use a super weapon that was never actually finished, which would end up destroying America. So, plotwise, it's a really fascinating story that I really ended up liking for the most part.

That being said, since I just talked Jonah Hex's character, let's talk about the biggest problem with this movie's writing. Which would have to be the character of Lilah, who is Megan Fox's character in this movie. Her character in this movie is completely pointless. In fact, you could've cut almost any scene involving her and you wouldn't have missed a thing. She's suppose to be Jonah Hex's love interest in this thing, but it doesn't really work because these two barely interact with each other. They interact with each other when Megan Fox is first on screen, but then they don't meet each other again until after she gets kidnapped by one of Turnbull's henchmen towards the end of the movie. And I would probably end up caring more about this, if she had more screen time in this movie, and was given proper character development. But that doesn't end up happening. Part of the reason for that is because of the film's runtime. You see, this movie only clocks in at about an hour and 22 minutes long. Well, technically speaking, it's about 75 minutes worth of film, and 7 minutes worth of credits. Which is surprisingly short for a Western. Now, to give you a bit of a comparison, most Western's would usually average between 90 minutes to 2 hours, sometimes longer than that. There are also examples of shorter Westerns, such as John Wayne's earlier films. Most of those which I haven't seen yet, but still. Anyway, this movie is fucking short as hell. In fact, it's about as short as most of DC's direct-to-video animated films. Which makes me think that if this thing were an animated film like I was hoping for, then it would probably still have the same problems as this movie did.

However, I will say again that what does work here for our story is still pretty good, so I'm not gonna harp on the writing too much here. Our characters in this movie, minus Lilah, are very well developed. Most of that development centers around Jonah Hex and Quentin Turnbull. Those two are the only ones that matter, and it works very well between the two. In fact, if this thing were just a straight-up revenge Western film, and the stuff involving Megan Fox's character was cut out, then this thing would've been fucking great. It would've been even shorter than it already was, mind you, but it still would've been a really solid movie. Or if they absolutely needed Megan Fox's character in this movie, then what they should've done was work the relationship between Liliah and Jonah at the start when they first meet each other, rather than have them automatically know each other from when they first meet. Because then, it would give more of a reason to care about Megan Fox's character as the film went on. Instead though, she only had about two pointless scenes before she ended up getting kidnapped by one of Turnbull's henchmen. And again, I would probably care more about Megan Fox's character, if the movie actually wanted to give the viewer a reason to care about her. And unless you like eye candy, then there's no reason to care about Megan Fox's character in this movie.

And since I just mentioned Megan Fox, let's get into the acting. Now, I have a bit of a theory as to why Megan Fox wasn't in this movie for very long. I mentioned it earlier, but Megan Fox's acting in this movie was terrible. I was sorta hoping she would get better as the film went along, but she didn't. She easily turns in the worst showing out of this entire cast. She phones it in, and she phones it in really poorly, too. Josh Brolin and John Malkovich, however, turned in really good showings. In fact, most of the entire cast turned in really good showings. It's just that Megan Fox is, like, the lowest point of this entire movie. And it's kind of a double-edged sword in this case. On one hand, since her character wasn't really given much to work with here, she could only do with so much with the script that was given to her, thus was the reason for her lackluster showing. On the other hand, since her acting was terrible in this thing, I feel that if she was in the movie for much longer, her acting probably would've brought this entire movie down to a screeching halt. So again, it's kind of a mixed bag here. It really just depends on how much you can tolerate Megan Fox in this movie. Myself personally, I didn't really care about her performance here. However, since she wasn't in this movie for very long, I can still overlook most of it, because the acting and the story here is still really solid. So while the acting from her is bad, it's not gonna bring this entire movie down for me. But that's just me speaking personally.

Now let's talk about the special effects. And here is something that I am rather disappointed with, mostly when it comes to the makeup effects. So for those of you who may not know, one of the most noticeable features about Jonah Hex is that half of his face is horribly burned, as I mentioned earlier when talking about his backstory for this movie. And one other thing that is most noticeable about his face is that he has a scar around his right eye. Which is something that this movie, unfortunately, skips out on. OK yes, it is cool that they got most of this burnt face to be spot on. However...his eye, in this movie anyway, looks perfectly fine here. Which is really a shame, to be honest, because you would think that, with half of his face being horribly burned, we would get to see his eye kinda popping out in a way that makes it look rather creepy. Unfortunately, they don't do that here. And it's a very missed opportunity as well. I mean, hell, they made it work with Harvey Dent in "The Dark Knight" when he ended up being Two-Face. So why this movie couldn't work in that amount of effort is something that I'm not gonna understand here. But regardless of my gripe with that, the special effects for everything else involving blood is fine. The CG is passable, but it's nothing amazing. The pyrotechnics work here really well, especially the stuff involving the cannonballs that center around the super weapon that I briefly mentioned earlier. So for the most part, the special effects are fine, but the stuff involving Jonah Hex's face is mostly a disappointment for me.

Camerawork here is really good. The lighting here is fine. The sound-mix is mixed perfectly. And the soundtrack and score here are pretty good, too. So really, the technical stuff here works fine. But then again, this is from Warner Bros., and it was working with a 47 million dollar budget. So them fucking up on the technical aspects would've sounded like a fucking crime if they got any of that wrong.

Ultimately, guys, when all is said and done, can I recommend "Jonah Hex"? I would say that if you are into Western's, then yes, I would say give this thing a watch. However, if you're not into that sort of genre, then you can probably skip this. Like I said, this thing is not a great film, and compared to the other Western's that I've seen, it's certainly not going to set the world on fire. However, I am someone who is a little biased when it comes to Westerns, so I mostly ended up really enjoying this, and I'll probably end up watching this movie again at some point. Even with the shit involving Megan Fox is not as bad as I was thinking it was going to be. Mind you, she is still terrible in this movie, but it's thankfully rather limited. So, I can still overlook her, regardless. But overall, I still wound up enjoying this movie, and I'm definitely going to add this thing to my DVD collection along with my other Western movies that I inherited from my Dad. Speaking of which, since I mentioned the Jonah Hex animated short earlier, I'm gonna go and re-watch "Superman/Shazam: The Return of Black Adam". Mostly for the Jonah Hex story, but I'll still end up watching the other stories that were a part of that anthology, as well.

Anyway, guys, with that, we come to the close of another Reaction & Review. Until next time, ladies and gentlemen, take care, and I will see you all later. Peace.