Jonah Hex: The Movie

I was looking forward to this movie but avoided it during its cinema run after almost universally bad reviews - well, I finally caught it this evening and although it's certainly not a classic by any stretch of the imagination it is worth watching - if only the once.  It starts off really well and after we witness Jonah bound and forced to watch his family burned to death by the vile Turnbull (John Malkovich), the film slips into a stylish partly animated sequence that tells of how Jonah was cheated out of revenge when Turnbull was himself burned alive in a hotel fire.



Jonah now makes his living as a bounty hunter but he is soon hired by the US Army and told that Turnbull is still alive, having faked his own death and has a super weapon which he plans to use on Interdependence Day. It's here that things start to go wrong - a simple revenge story could have worked but instead we have a super weapon which is never properly explained. And Turnbull's motivation is too far fetched for even a comic book adaptation such as this.

Much was made of Megan Fox's role but in truth her part is insignificant. If Jonah Hex was The Beatles then Megan Fox would be Ringo. She gets to be seen in a couple of scenes earlier on and then pops up during the all action climax to kick ass.

I had such high hopes for this one - the source material is often excellent, but ultimately the film fails to really engage. It's a supernatural western which in itself gives it a slice of coolness but it could and should have been so much more.