Why So Blu?

Jonah Hex Gets Ugly in Ghost Rider 2

I first became interested in Jonah Hex last summer after seeing a sneak peak of several scenes at Warner Brothers’ Comic-Con panel (see here).  I have to admit; I have never read a single page of the DC Comics’ title.  So I guess you can say that I am a Jonah Hex virgin.  Sometimes that’s a good thing, right?  Anyway, I’m a big Josh Brolin fan from back in the days, but what really sold me on this movie, much to my astonishment, was the sultry Megan Fox.  No it was not her acting abilities, or lack thereof depending upon who you talk to, but I was just simply mesmerized by how small her waist appears in that tightly drawn corset she adorns.  Wow!  Is that even possible?  Plus the fact that she was sitting right there in front of me didn’t help matters either. 

The Jimmy Hayward directed film stars Josh Brolin as the title character, John Malkovich, Michael Fassbender and of course, the incredibly gorgeous, but very demanding and high maintenance (but most people still love her), Megan Fox.  The screenplay was penned by the duo of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank and Gamer), but the film’s production was momentarily halted over a game of musical chairs when trying to court a director.  Neveldine and Taylor were originally set to direct, but after experiencing creative differences with the studio they stepped down and were eventually replaced by Hayward after an exhaustive two-month search.

As I stated before, having never seen a single Jonah Hex comic book frame in my life, I knew not what to expect from this film other than what I saw in trailers and in the 2009 Comic-Con footage.  However, if Robert Rodriguez taught me one thing, it’s that you can’t judge a movie by its trailer.  So anyway, the story of Jonah Hex goes a little something like this y’all.  Jonah Hex obviously has a scarred life, no pun intended.  He supposedly is half dead and half alive.  Yeah, just try and figure that one out without seeing the film.  I double dog dare you!  Anyway, things change for Jonah when the US Military offers him pardon for all his arrests in exchange for doing one small favor for them.  Sounds like a no brainer, huh?  Well, Hex agrees to track and bring down the renegade terrorist known as Quentin Turnbull (Malkovich), who just so happens to be Jonah’s oldest enemy.  What a coincidence, huh?  And so as you can imagine, the forces of good and evil duke it out for a foolhardy 74 minutes in one hell of an absurd, messed up, mythical western screenplay.  And these ladies and gentlemen… are 74 minutes I can never get back in life.

The movie was such a mess I don’t even know where to begin.  Let me put it this way.  If I had to imagine what a sequel to Ghost Rider might be like, then Jonah Hex is the winner… winner… chicken dinner.  Everything about it is just atrocious.  It’s a shame to see such an iconic comic book hero inserted into one bungled production.  And even worse… two great actors were wasted here… Brolin and Malkvoich.  I suppose we all have are duds… Halle Berry had her Catwoman, Eric Bana had Hulk and now Brolin has Jonah Hex.  Yes, it was that bad.  From the extremely hard to hear dialog to the obnoxious guitars, 74 minutes never felt so long.  The weather is supposed to be gorgeous this weekend, at least where I live, so I can’t stress this enough.  Skip Jonah Hex.  There’s a reason why this Warner Brothers film took so long to come out.  I question whether or not they should have just released it straight to video (it may have yielded a larger profit) or shelved it completely.  When looking back on 2010, I think Ghost Rider 2… oops… I mean Jonah Hex will be among my biggest disappointments.  Not even Megan Fox’s sweaty body could save this one.  Space cowboy out…