Jonah Hex

“Megan Fox … have fun” – Amy, upon hearing of our desire to see Jonah Hex and its cast. Well, we had a bit of fun, to go along with the bit of movie we saw. Evan timed it from start to the beginning of the credits, and it clocked in at 73 minutes. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the last movie I saw that was that short was animated … and edited for TV.

Anyway, Jonah Hex followed the annoying formula of two hours of build-up and then action-payoff at the end. Except it was only an hour of build-up, so it wasn’t too hard to bear. And the build-up wasn’t too boring. You know how Avatar was two hours of beautiful before the payoff, and Ironman 2 was two hours of screwball comedy before the payoff? Jonah Hex was an hour of Western before the payoff, which isn’t so bad (but maybe that’s just my affection for Firefly leaking through). They also mixed it in with some nifty gadgets (it didn’t take long for him to bust out the dual chainguns on his horse, and there were hand-sized crossbows that shot sticks of dynamite. It sounds a lot sillier on paper) and a bit of the super/unnatural (there was a minor character that appeared to have snake venom as saliva and could dislocate his jaw on demand). And of course, they also had his gimmick – he could talk to dead people. It was used well (both as a source of information, and an innovative means of revenge). His other gimmick is a facial scar that starts of interesting but gets more and more distracting as the movie goes on. It makes drinking hard, but whiskey doesn't come with straws.

The whole thing seemed a bit standard, though. Standard villains (“Hey look, a Complete Monster. That’s new. Wow, a psychotic lunatic. I’ve never seen one of those before.” You can tell he’s a psycho because he likes playing with lit dynamite), even a standard plot about anarchy, disguised as revenge, and called something else (“The Mexicans have a nickname for him – Terrorista” – paraphrased from the President. Evan said it sounded like a female terrorist. “Evil Sexy Mexicans – they’ll blow you … up”).

And then there were the modern movie requirements. Leading lady? Cue Megan Fox (“It’s a western. I can drawl my lines.” “No, Megan, No! Just … read your lines, and try and get the words right.”). Racial Diversity? Cue requisite African American (it’s set after the civil war, so he’s free, a shop owner, and takes his kids to hear the president speak for the Fourth of July). Not really a confederate soldier? Cue the conversation about not believing in secession or slavery – only being a Johnny Reb because (mumble mumble mumble drawl). Unfortunately, there were some important lines I didn’t hear either because of the drawl, the mumbling, or the funny comments from Evan.

The climax contained a flashback and the second half of a vision brought on by a mid-movie near death experience (That’s okay – Jonah Hex is used to those by now), so it was a bit hard to follow. Which is a bit of a problem when it’s the main (almost only) action scene. There’s just a bit too much going, and a few too many quick cuts in between locations.

So all in all, not a bad movie, just not a good one. Not as bad as Robin Hood, but not as good or fun as the other ones (although there were some funny lines … just not as much as the others). One thumb up. I’m still deciding about the other one. It varies between sideways and down. I can’t in all good conscience encourage you to see this in theatres, but it’ll probably be in the $6.99 bargain bin at Wal-Mart by Christmas. Even then, it might be best to pass it around between friends. It’s a good movie if you want to kill an hour and a half, and it still leaves 15 minutes to blog about how short it is.