I went to the local Blockbuster the other day and grabbed two new movies, two of the 'big' releases for the week. (You know, when they basically fill an entire wall with just one movie - and they're all out...) One of these two, I liked a lot. The other made me shake my head in disgust.... can you guess which one?
Jonah Hex (2010)
I've only ever owned and/or read perhaps a dozen Jonah Hex comics in my time, and enjoyed every one of them, but I'll admit that I'm really just a casual fan of the series. Westerns are not really my thing, but JH stands out amongst them. When reading an issue, it always felt like I was watching Clint Eastwood in like, Unforgiven in comic book form.....but his face is all f**ked up. He was a bounty hunter, and like Clint, he shot a lot of people - dead. Other than that, I don't know a lot about the character, but I'm pretty sure that if I were a hardcore 'Hexer' I'd wanna shoot somebody real dead for making this horrible mockery of one of comicdom's truly standout characters (I mean he stands out cuz he's cool....not just cuz he's ugly).
My knowledge of Hexology being what it is, I couldn't tell you what kind of supernatural powers Jonah ever had in the comics (if any at all), but the whole 'speaking with the dead' shtick was very awkward in this film. I don't remember ever reading about anything like this, but of course it's been a while, and I've never read any Jonah Hex comics that had a cover price of more than .60c (.75c in Canada).... I also do not remember Jonah having an arch-enemy, especially one who was an 1870's terrorist bent on bringing down the Government. And he certainly did not work with or for the President of the United States...
Josh Brolin is pretty lifeless as Hex, but I guess that's forgivable given the ridiculous plot and dialogue. John Malkovich is John Malkovich. He's the same in everything. It's like he just walked off of the set of Con Air and popped a cowboy hat on his head. Megan Fox (in the ironically perfectly cast role of an Old West saloon whore), is of course in this too. In fact, you'd think she played Jonah Hex himself the way the studio hyped-up her appearance in this movie. The above image was the first one I could find that didn't have Megan Fox in it when I did a Google image search for " Jonah Hex movie ", and I found it on Page 5. Her role in the film is actually pretty brief and meaningless....hopefully like her career. Sorry, Meg. Not a fan.
Speaking of fans, the makers of this movie are obviously not Jonah Hex fans. If they were, this would have been a much better movie. It seemed to me that they knew even less about the character than I did...or if they did know more, they chose to ignore anything that didn't fit within the cheesy action movie formula that they believe works so well. It's like they pulled Jonah Hex's name out of a hat and stuck him into a movie that was already (lamely) written. I know I've said this exact thing before about other movies, but it's just really disappointing to see all the same old story templates used over and over and over again with little to no originality in there at all (this one was the oft-seen 'Revenge' template - very appropriate for Westerns, I'm told). I guess you just can't take too many chances with someone else's $100 Million.
What I think bothers me the most is that Jonah Hex had the potential to be a really entertaining in that they could have gone way over the top and made it even cheesier - played it for laughs. The filmmakers didn't even do this right (although there were a few laughably awful moments). I think they took their jobs too seriously and actually thought they'd pull off a quality movie from all of this. They were wrong. Dead wrong.
Bang.
D (for Don't see it)
How To Train Your Dragon (2010)
I have enjoyed most of the big-budget CGI animated movies that have been released in the last five years or so, and this is of course no exception. For some reason, they always get me. Of course, I realize that when it comes to predictability and cookie cutter storylines (see Jonah Hex, above), these types of films are usually the worst culprits, but let me explain. I can forgive Dreamworks and Pixar and the rest for this for a number of reasons.... 3 Good Reasons, in fact.
1 - These movies are mainly aimed at families and young kids, so the morals and themes need to be a lot more clearly defined and easier to follow.
2 - The normally highly recognizable voice actors tend to really 'give it their all' in the recording booth and often become hilarious parodies of themselves
(ie: Eddie Murphy as Donkey, Don Rickles as Mr. Potato Head, Ellen DeGeneres as Dori)
3 - The animation looks so incredibly cool that you can overlook the predictable story
(ie; Lighten up. It's a friggin' cartoon...)
How To Train Your Dragon is no exception on any of these points. It's less predictable than some, but the title pretty much sums it all up. A skinny loser boy from a Viking village beset by dragons wants to prove himself and earn his place in the fold. When given the opportunity to kill a dragon, he instead takes pity on it and nurses it back to health. The dragon becomes like a pet to him and eventually the hero learns to ride it, being the first Viking to ever do so instead of slaying dragons on sight.
The supporting cast are all good, and Gerard Butler is excellent in his role as the Viking chieftan and father to Hiccup (the main character, played by Jay Baruchel). Forget 300, this was the role Gerard was born to play. He's the most extreme Viking to hit the screen to date - we'll see if that still holds true after Thor comes out in 2011. Craig Ferguson is also pretty funny as the peg-legged veteran Viking who takes Hiccup under his wing to teach him how to slay dragons.
The main dragon in this film (Toothless, the Night Fury) is very cool looking and has a very original, almost cat-like design to him. All told, most of the dragons in this movie don't look much at all like the typical dragons you see in everything else. They all have unique characteristics and body styles and there are a whole bunch of different types of them. A nice touch that kept things interesting.
See it! It's a cool story with neat special effects that you could watch with your kids. In my opinion, this is how all great fantasy and sci-fi stories should be brought to the big screen. You hear that, Peter Jackson? I say forget all the troubles in New Zealand with casting halfling-sized extras and body doubles for The Hobbit. Scrap all that. Come to North America and do the whole thing CGI.
A- (for Approaching Awesome)
So watch 'Dragon'. Don't watch 'Hex'.
And BTW, the title of this post is an utter lie. One could never train the mighty Jonah Hex... at least not the original, Eastwood-ish, real Jonah Hex from the comics.
May the Force be with you...
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