Jonah Hex

Jonah Hex had the potential to be one of the coolest films of 2010, the story of a scared bounty hunter with powers to talk to the dead, and a soundtrack written by Metal behemoths Mastodon , a film in which the principle cast of Josh Brolin, John Malkovich and Megan Fox all took pay cuts to appear in the film, a film which Thomas Jane, who voiced Hex in a animated short, wanted so badly he petitioned the studio to give him the live action role, even hiring a make-up artist to give him the Hex look, it had lot stacked in its favour, it had so much potential…

Originally created in 1971 by John Albano and Artist Tony Zuniga for DC Comics Jonah Hex has never been a major player in the comic stakes, despite having a number of successful runs, and as such he's always been held in high regard in geekdom, and given the way any comic worth its ink and staples his eaten up and made into a movie nowadays it was a matter of time before Hex got his turn.

Which brings back to the movie, seamless I know. I think the first issue Hex has is with the director, Jimmy Hayward with his first live action movie, and only his second as a head honcho, the first being Horton hears a Who. Horton was a logical progression , as Hayward started out as an animator on the brilliant kids series Reboot, about the world within a computer. Okay they did that in Tron, but it was still good, and the first 30 minute programme made entirely in CGI.

Hayward also worked at the King Kong of computer animation, Pixar where he worked as an animator on their first five features Toy Story, A Bug’s Life, Toy Story 2, Monsters Inc. & Finding Nemo, at which point he defected to the dark side, otherwise known as Blue Sky Studios, who are most famous for the Ice Age films, and it was here Hayward worked on the rather forgettable Robots, anyone, no didn’t think so, and made his directorial debut with the aforementioned Horton.

History lesson over, and back to the point, Hayward shouldn’t have made the jump to live action, animation is clearly where he excels, and Hex looks like a animation, an animation where they couldn’t afford the crayons. The whole time your watching you can’t help but think it. There are two culprits for this cinematic crime, and evidence of both are apparent within the first ten minutes. The film starts with what seems like a ‘previously on Jonah Hex…’ type catch up, much more suited to something like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the problem is we’re not catching up on anything, this is our introduction to the world of Jonah Hex. This leads into what is one of the best sequences in the film, an animated comic book title sequence, but this brilliant introduction brings to things with it, the knowledge of how good the film could have been, and the continuing feel of the sci-fi channel. After the catch-up and introduction the pace doesn’t slow down at all, its meant to be fast and exhilarating, but comes of more like a Chav on a joyride rather than formula one, everything just seems like a frantic rush... for a live action film, in an animated one the pace would be fine.

And for someone who supposedly took a pay cut to appear in the film, John Malkovich looks bored, defiantly leaving Con Air’s Cyrus the Virus as his greatest work of villainy.

Lets hope this isn’t going to be the case with all western inspired comic book adapts, because Jon Favreau (Iron Man, Iron Man 2) is bring us Cowboys & Aliens this summer and that also has potential....