Life in Four Colors: Special Edition
Thoughts about the Jonah Hex Film
First off, "Tales of my demise have been greatly exaggerated." To quote the legendary Mark Twain, which seems I have a tendency to do, it appears Life In Four Colors is not dead, yet. Like a classic rock band that goes out on a farewell tour but never calls it quits, here I am again. The reason for that is this, I have yet to finish my swan song column that will officially end the LIFC column series here on the Comic Related site. I am running behind on a few things and I do (truly) believe the last column will go up Friday June 25th.
So seeing how the column isn't pushing up daisies at Boot Hill quite yet, I decided to sneak this movie commentary in before LIFC goes riding off into the sun set.
And that is exactly what this is , a commentary. Not a review. My thoughts on what I thought was a great comic book film, and my thoughts alone. You don't have to agree with me, and if I was a bettin' man I'd say you would likely disagree.
But because my thoughts were requested, to a certain degree. Here they are. So pull a chair and name your poison because the lead is about ready to start flyin' up around here.
Seeing how there was a comic book movie riding into town this weekend my ol' pardner (Scott Riley) and I rustled up a bunch of comic book outlaws and the whole posse hit the theatres to check out Jonah Hex last night. And as I already mentioned in the CR forums...I loved the movie. I had a 4:00 a.m wake up call and I still made sure I caught the 9:45 showing , the only one that both my wife and I could see together on this busy weekend...and yes she loved the film too) True, opinions was mixed after all of us shared our own thoughts on the film afterward, but I made the following comment and I stand by it.
I liked Jonah Hex better than Iron Man 2, making it the best comic book film I have seen this year. And there's several reasons why I say this. First, I'm sure I was the person with the most knowledge of the comic this movie was based on watching the movie last night, which drew a good crowd for a C-Grade D.C. comic book character that most people never even heard of before. If you are not the type of person who thinks they would like to see a movie about a disillusioned Confederate soldier who ends up becoming a disfigured old west bounty with a strong hint of the supernatural thrown in. Don't see this film.
But hey, that already sounds like a good film to me. I would have seen it if I didn't have clue about the comic.
If you do not like Josh Brolin. Do not see this film.
If you like to listen to 12 year old internet movie critics who waste good air with every breath they take. Do not see this film.
But if you like westerns filled with explosions, whiskey, Indian rituals, and films that make an honest attempt to honor the source material down to every minute detail about the main characters. Guess what? You too may just end up liking this movie.
Josh Brolin looked and acted exactly how I always thought Joan Hex should look and act on the big screen. John Malkkovich was dead on as Quentin Turnbull. And Megan Fox was even pretty good in this. I mean she did play a lesser known character who was a whore. So she did pretty good.
The movie does take some liberties with Jonah's origin.
But we all know this is going to happen. And this is Jonah Hex we're talking about. He doesn't really have a "set in stone" origin to begin with. I know of at least four different various origin stories for the character and the film mixes elements of three of them with a touch of the usual Hollywood spit shine and pulls it off rather well.
If you ever read Jonah Hex (once again I would bet I was the only person in attendance who had read more than one issue of the title) there's no way you leave this film disappointed. Unless you like the newer Jonah Hex (which I collected the first eighteen issues of), which tries to steer away from the supernatural western tales that first brought limited acclaim to the character while he was starring in Weird Western Tales before spinning off into his own on-going title.
I liked both takes on the character, making him a more "realistic" outlaw in the newest series as well as the old supernatural ones, and must admit I favored the older ones. If like me, you did like that stuff better once again this movie is going to surprise you in a good way because it leans very heavily on that material.
One of the many reasons I enjoyed the film.
Now to defend my train of thought about Jonah Hex being better than Iron Man 2. To me it's quite easy. A no brainer in fact. When I left the movie theatre after watching Iron Man 2 I was honestly disappointed. I was disappointed in certain aspects of the story line and movie direction, and the casting of a character or two.
I didn't feel this way leaving Jonah Hex. The story direction was great. The cast did a great job, and you even get a few surprising cameos such as Jeffery Dean Morgan ( in his third comic book role counting The Watchmen and The Losers, Tom "Luke Duke" Wompat, Adian Quinn as President Grant, and Lance Riddick (Agent Browles from Fringe) as the weapon maker Smith...and for the record, Riddick played a better James Rhodes in this film than Terrence Howard and Don Cheadle combined).
There were other things I liked about this film better than Iron Man 2, like how the bad guy didn't get effortlessly punked out , not once...but twice.
Was the movie stellar? No. Ground breaking? No. Was there anything about it that I did find disappointing? Yes. I thought it was too short clocking in at about an hour and ten minutes (I could be a little off on that). I would have loved to see at least another twenty minutes to the film. I didn't like the fact it was rated PG-13. My God!!! What's up with that? This film is not going to do any better with the overall audience due to this rating. This film (like any good western outlaw film) needs to be Rated (freakin') R. It's Jonah Hex for Pete's Sake. He kills people for money. He sleeps with prostitutes and he's an Army deserter. What is it in that description that says it makes sense to make this a PG-13 film? Not a damn thing.
Perhaps the most disappointing aspect about the film was if it does tank at the box office...and I'm sure it will...I can't even blame Megan Fox because she was okay in this one. I know it's not saying much but it's the best role she ever played (at least out of the two movies I've seen her in).
So there you have it....Jonah Hex in a nut shell. My rant is over. Perhaps something I said may persuade you to give this film a chance. Perhaps not.
It's a free country for the moment.
See you in the funny papers.
Bill Gladman - Bill is a writer and illustrator and currently working on several different projects including the first issue of an ongoing comic book series (Prodigy), an illustrated fantasy novel (The Book of Noheim), and the first of four illustrated science fiction/fantasy novels (Jack the Rabbit, Living Legend of the Purple Plains) as well as a light-hearted on going mini-comic (Three Wise Men). Bill also pens a column for Comic Related and will be doing a mix of regional convention coverage.
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