Josh Brolin: Thanos – Marvel Cinematic Universe
Megan Fox: April O’Neil – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mikaela – Transformers
Michael Fassbender: Magneto – X-Men
Will Arnett: Batman – The Lego Movie, Lego Batman
Michael Shannon: Zod – Man of Steel
Wes Bentley: Bleackheart – Ghost Rider
John Malkovich: Marvin – Red
Jeffrey Dean Morgan: Thomas Wayne – Batman v Superman, Negan – The Walking Dead
They’ve all “walked between worlds,” so to speak. In addition to their roles as stated above, they all met in one 2010 DC movie: Jonah Hex.
Now, this movie was critically panned, and relatively ignored by fans as well. With an estimated budget around $47mil, it only brought in just over $10.5mil, not ideal for a summer blockbuster in the middle of the comic book cinema age.
Let’s take a few minutes to discuss what I didn’t think worked for the picture. Let’s start with the weapons of mass destruction. Imagine it’s the late 19th century. While revolvers and “six shooters” are running rampant, there’s no company making those massive cannons.
Secondly, there’s nowhere in any Jonah Hex comic book before the time of this movie that said Hex had supernatural abilities. That makes the fact that Jonah can wake the dead and get information from then something that’s exclusive to the movie…and if there’s one thing comics nerds hate, it’s that Hollywood doesn’t stay true to the source material.
Here’s the thing – I enjoyed this movie. As we all know, I’m not a hard-hitting movie critic. But I am a fan. I enjoyed the tone of this movie, and how they tried telling a comic book story in a comic book way. I think had it not been a comic book character, it’s still a compelling story. “Man comes back from the brink of death to avenge the lives of his wife and son were killed by the man whose son was killed by the first man.”
I thought Brolin was a great Jonah Hex even though he has said since then that he hated his time working on it. Megan Fox was there and had her usual stints of showing skin and making wisecracks, but she showed she was also pretty fearless in fending off a male attacker in her bedroom. I liked Malkovich, as he is always a believable bad guy. And I’m such a fan of Fassbender’s work that I’ve sat through a lot of movies just to see him perform.
Look, the long of the short is that you’ve probably already make up your mind about this movie, and that’s fine. But dammit, give it a watch with some more realistic expectations. I think you’ll find “it’s not that bad.”
But at the same time, we look at the talent in this movie and know we can’t blame them. They all went to bigger and better things.
