In which I talk about Jonah Hex, from my newly-minuted position as Ambassador of Shitty Movies (tm ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zillahseye.
1) The comics industry, and how it decides what to adapt into a film, is baffling to me. Like--okay, Nolan has three Batman movies. They're then ditching those to do a JLA movie with a Batman that probably won't be Christian Bale and a Superman that may or may not be Henry Cavill. We're rebooting Superman again, despite the Superman reboot we got, like, five or six years ago. Green Lantern didn't do anywhere near as good as DC would have liked, but we still can't get a Wonder Woman movie? But we got THIS? I mean, WHAT?
(Marvel is slightly better in this regard, especially since they sat down and decided to do the MCU--Marvel Cinematic Universe--but the whole "Marvel movies and X-Men movies are separate entities" thing is fucking baffling to me, separate studios or no. Do you know how much I would pay for an Illuminati joke at the end of The Avengers? SO MUCH.)
--yeah, so basically, I have no idea why they made this goddamn movie.
2) Actually, just the casting of this makes me stare in confusion. It's not as bad as my personal favorite, Blade: Trinity, whose villains consisted of an indie actress (Parker Posey), a Canadian character actor (Callum Keith Rennie), and a professional wrestler (Triple H), but this is close. And I don't even mean the principal actors; I mean the utterly random shit, like Will Arnett as a general, Aidan Quinn as President Grant, Lance Reddick as Hex's African-American Q (James Bond, not Star Trek), and Wes Bentley as a traitor to America. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is in this! As John Malkovitch's son! For approximately TWO MINUTES. WHAT.
3) The movie just stops dead to explain who the hell Eli Whitney is.
4) I am sorry, I love her, but hookers in the 1800s did not, as a rule, look like Megan Fox. Okay? They didn't. And I'm not gonna get into the Lilah/Tallulah Black thing--that's a subject for Gale Geeks Out Over Comic Book Movies, a series I'm not writing--but there is no real reason for her to be in this movie. And I like Megan Fox! But you really--I hate to say it, but you could have made this movie without ladies, and it would not have changed it overmuch.
(She does get to shoot guns and threaten guys who get too handsy with her, though, which is pretty awesome.)
5) Hex's Q (Lance Reddick) straight up tells him, in the middle of getting him weapons, "I know you didn't really believe in slavery." Seriously. Forgives him for fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War. I--that is a thing that happened. Did not make that up. Yeah.
6) At one point, Hex shoots a crossbow that fires sticks of dynamite. By that point I'd completely divorced myself from realism in regards to this movie, so it was pretty sweet.
7) Dear filmmakers: STOP FILMING THINGS ENTIRELY AT NIGHT, IT IS OCCASIONALLY FUCKING HARD TO SEE WHAT'S GOING ON. IN YOUR MOVIE. THAT I AM TRYING TO WATCH.
8) I appreciate that at this point, John Malkovitch is like Sean Connery. The guy attempts a Southern accent for approximately thirty seconds, then basically goes, "Nope, I'm done."
9) The whole point of Jonah Hex--okay, I'm going to geek out for a second, fine--is that his stories take place in what can loosely be called the Weird West. Like, seeing Jonah Hex fight vampires? Totally fine. Jonah Hex fighting alongside The Haunted Tank? Ho-hum. This...is basically Wild Wild West without the giant mechanical spider. And I hate to say it, but this movie? Could have used a giant mechanical spider. Or The Haunted Tank. Or ANYTHING OTHER THAN WHAT WE HAD.
10) Wes Bentley's muttonchops are practically another character. Seriously, the last time I saw ones that ridiculous were on Hugh Dillon in Ginger Snaps: The Beginning.
11) Seriously: JDM is in this for like two minutes as Malkovitch's dead son, who's like half the reason he's sworn vengeance against Hex and the United States government. And he doesn't half-ass it! (I *did* spend a little bit of time wondering if he had a bastard child somewhere that would eventually lead to the Winchesters, but that's just because I can't shut the fanfic brain off.)
12) Actually, the horrifying thing about this movie is that no one really half-asses it. Malkovitch kind of does, but--I mean, he's in Jonah Hex. So. Also, even when that guy half-asses it, it's still not bad.
13) There are two separate fight scenes set on what may or may not be the astral plane. One takes place during a simultaneous fistfight. WHAT.
14) In case you're wondering "is there a way to make Michael Fassbender physically unattractive?", the answer is, "Yes: a face tattoo."
15) Yes, I watched this for Fassbender. Yes, it was TOTALLY WORTH IT.
Like I said, like everyone else, he doesn't half-ass it; he just goes for it, even with an Irish accent best described as "Lucky Charms leprechaun" that has...not a lot to do with how he actually sounds. (Actual accent? Beach divorce in XMFC.) You guys, he first shows up blowing up a train loaded with passengers, while adjusting his bowler hat and whistling "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", and I DID NOT EVEN CARE. NOT A DEAL-BREAKER. Not even the Cryptkeeper laugh he busts out could dissuade me.
(It came close, though. GAAAAH.)
Unfortunately, because my brain is--my brain, I'm stuck with way more questions: Why is Burke working for Turnbull? Is it just money? He seems fairly sympathetic in places, and he's clearly a crazy guy with a fuck-off knife and guns, so maybe he's just big on ultraviolence. What is UP with the face/neck/arm tattoos? He's a fairly jovial motherfucker, you guys, and it's just--I have questions, movie! I do not think you meant to do that! WELL, GUESS WHAT.
16) Actually, in another movie, Burke would be fucking awesome. So would Lilah. Come on: Megan Fox playing a former prostitute who can shoot a gun and isn't intimidated by men in the least, traveling around the Old West and helping people who need it? I would watch the shit out of that movie, DC! Why didn't you make that one? It would be no less random than THE ONE I JUST SAW.
17) Also I am leaving out the random Native American "mysticism" where the spirits of death are psychopomps that leave Hex's body in the form of crows oh my God you guys this movie is SO BAD.
...which means I am totally recommending it, in a "drinking game/mock it with someone you love" kind of way. It doesn't quite whip around and do the 180 the way The Thirst and The Tournament so, but it does a couple of 30 degree turns that almost add up to 180. It is not good enough to actually be terrible, but I have watched it four times in as many days, so clearly I am in some sort of fugue state that makes me watch crap-ass movies.
zillahseye.1) The comics industry, and how it decides what to adapt into a film, is baffling to me. Like--okay, Nolan has three Batman movies. They're then ditching those to do a JLA movie with a Batman that probably won't be Christian Bale and a Superman that may or may not be Henry Cavill. We're rebooting Superman again, despite the Superman reboot we got, like, five or six years ago. Green Lantern didn't do anywhere near as good as DC would have liked, but we still can't get a Wonder Woman movie? But we got THIS? I mean, WHAT?
(Marvel is slightly better in this regard, especially since they sat down and decided to do the MCU--Marvel Cinematic Universe--but the whole "Marvel movies and X-Men movies are separate entities" thing is fucking baffling to me, separate studios or no. Do you know how much I would pay for an Illuminati joke at the end of The Avengers? SO MUCH.)
--yeah, so basically, I have no idea why they made this goddamn movie.
2) Actually, just the casting of this makes me stare in confusion. It's not as bad as my personal favorite, Blade: Trinity, whose villains consisted of an indie actress (Parker Posey), a Canadian character actor (Callum Keith Rennie), and a professional wrestler (Triple H), but this is close. And I don't even mean the principal actors; I mean the utterly random shit, like Will Arnett as a general, Aidan Quinn as President Grant, Lance Reddick as Hex's African-American Q (James Bond, not Star Trek), and Wes Bentley as a traitor to America. Jeffrey Dean Morgan is in this! As John Malkovitch's son! For approximately TWO MINUTES. WHAT.
3) The movie just stops dead to explain who the hell Eli Whitney is.
4) I am sorry, I love her, but hookers in the 1800s did not, as a rule, look like Megan Fox. Okay? They didn't. And I'm not gonna get into the Lilah/Tallulah Black thing--that's a subject for Gale Geeks Out Over Comic Book Movies, a series I'm not writing--but there is no real reason for her to be in this movie. And I like Megan Fox! But you really--I hate to say it, but you could have made this movie without ladies, and it would not have changed it overmuch.
(She does get to shoot guns and threaten guys who get too handsy with her, though, which is pretty awesome.)
5) Hex's Q (Lance Reddick) straight up tells him, in the middle of getting him weapons, "I know you didn't really believe in slavery." Seriously. Forgives him for fighting for the Confederacy during the Civil War. I--that is a thing that happened. Did not make that up. Yeah.
6) At one point, Hex shoots a crossbow that fires sticks of dynamite. By that point I'd completely divorced myself from realism in regards to this movie, so it was pretty sweet.
7) Dear filmmakers: STOP FILMING THINGS ENTIRELY AT NIGHT, IT IS OCCASIONALLY FUCKING HARD TO SEE WHAT'S GOING ON. IN YOUR MOVIE. THAT I AM TRYING TO WATCH.
8) I appreciate that at this point, John Malkovitch is like Sean Connery. The guy attempts a Southern accent for approximately thirty seconds, then basically goes, "Nope, I'm done."
9) The whole point of Jonah Hex--okay, I'm going to geek out for a second, fine--is that his stories take place in what can loosely be called the Weird West. Like, seeing Jonah Hex fight vampires? Totally fine. Jonah Hex fighting alongside The Haunted Tank? Ho-hum. This...is basically Wild Wild West without the giant mechanical spider. And I hate to say it, but this movie? Could have used a giant mechanical spider. Or The Haunted Tank. Or ANYTHING OTHER THAN WHAT WE HAD.
10) Wes Bentley's muttonchops are practically another character. Seriously, the last time I saw ones that ridiculous were on Hugh Dillon in Ginger Snaps: The Beginning.
11) Seriously: JDM is in this for like two minutes as Malkovitch's dead son, who's like half the reason he's sworn vengeance against Hex and the United States government. And he doesn't half-ass it! (I *did* spend a little bit of time wondering if he had a bastard child somewhere that would eventually lead to the Winchesters, but that's just because I can't shut the fanfic brain off.)
12) Actually, the horrifying thing about this movie is that no one really half-asses it. Malkovitch kind of does, but--I mean, he's in Jonah Hex. So. Also, even when that guy half-asses it, it's still not bad.
13) There are two separate fight scenes set on what may or may not be the astral plane. One takes place during a simultaneous fistfight. WHAT.
14) In case you're wondering "is there a way to make Michael Fassbender physically unattractive?", the answer is, "Yes: a face tattoo."
15) Yes, I watched this for Fassbender. Yes, it was TOTALLY WORTH IT.
Like I said, like everyone else, he doesn't half-ass it; he just goes for it, even with an Irish accent best described as "Lucky Charms leprechaun" that has...not a lot to do with how he actually sounds. (Actual accent? Beach divorce in XMFC.) You guys, he first shows up blowing up a train loaded with passengers, while adjusting his bowler hat and whistling "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", and I DID NOT EVEN CARE. NOT A DEAL-BREAKER. Not even the Cryptkeeper laugh he busts out could dissuade me.
(It came close, though. GAAAAH.)
Unfortunately, because my brain is--my brain, I'm stuck with way more questions: Why is Burke working for Turnbull? Is it just money? He seems fairly sympathetic in places, and he's clearly a crazy guy with a fuck-off knife and guns, so maybe he's just big on ultraviolence. What is UP with the face/neck/arm tattoos? He's a fairly jovial motherfucker, you guys, and it's just--I have questions, movie! I do not think you meant to do that! WELL, GUESS WHAT.
16) Actually, in another movie, Burke would be fucking awesome. So would Lilah. Come on: Megan Fox playing a former prostitute who can shoot a gun and isn't intimidated by men in the least, traveling around the Old West and helping people who need it? I would watch the shit out of that movie, DC! Why didn't you make that one? It would be no less random than THE ONE I JUST SAW.
17) Also I am leaving out the random Native American "mysticism" where the spirits of death are psychopomps that leave Hex's body in the form of crows oh my God you guys this movie is SO BAD.
...which means I am totally recommending it, in a "drinking game/mock it with someone you love" kind of way. It doesn't quite whip around and do the 180 the way The Thirst and The Tournament so, but it does a couple of 30 degree turns that almost add up to 180. It is not good enough to actually be terrible, but I have watched it four times in as many days, so clearly I am in some sort of fugue state that makes me watch crap-ass movies.
From:
no subject
Oh christ I need this movie. I am rationalizing it on the theory that grad school is hard, I need brain candy. But really I just need to see Fassbender in a bowler hat blowing shit up.
From:
no subject
Possibly I own it OKAY BUT I HAVE A HISTORY OF TERRIBLE MOVIES, AS BEFITS MY AMBASSADORIAL STATUS.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
SERIOUSLY, THE DELETED ENDING INVOLVES THEM HUNTING DOWN WEREWOLVES IN A LAS VEGAS CASINO. How did that not get greenlit?
From:
no subject