Cowboy of the Damned

It’s summer, I get it: It’s the time for comics to come to life on the silver screen all wrapped up in their blockbuster finest with a ribbon on it.

Did the post-Civil War-set Jonah Hex, starring Josh Brolin and Megan Fox – a.k.a. Hollywood’s take on the adventures of the DC Comics anti-hero – have to be quite so…boring, though?

My goodness, I mean, I never knew 80 minutes could feel like such an eternity. This has got to be the least exciting cowboy movie ever made.

Oh well, whaddya gonna do....

I mean, it’s only natural that for every Batman movie (the first two, the third one to a certain extent, and, of course, the Christopher Nolan ones), Iron Man, and Spider-Man there should be a Daredevil, and now, a Jonah Hex, right? Balance is everything. Or so it seems.

Brolin plays the titular role of this would-be fanboy wet dream. His character is a scarred drifter, a known bounty hunter most everyone he encounters is afraid of – he’s fast and sharp and real good at what he does.

I say that not everybody is afraid of him because there’s always a brave one everywhere he goes, someone who thinks he can sneak up on the guy. They usually meet their maker.

Jonah Hex is a tortured kind of guy, not because he feels any remorse for his gunslinging. No, it’s his past that haunts him. He survived sure death at the hands of a fellow a military man named Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), an experience that left him with one foot in the natural world and one on the “other side” – and completely awash in guilt over not saving his family.

His only human connection is with Lilah (Fox, looking beyond-svelte in a stickly way in an 18-inch corset, which probably can explain her often unintelligible delivery), a a tough-cookie of a working girl whose life in a brothel has left her with scars of her own.

Anyway, the cowboy’s past catches up with him when the U.S. military makes him an offer he simply can’t refuse: freedom from the warrants on his head in exchange for stopping the dangerous Turnbull, who has a plan to bring the about-to-celebrate-its-centennial United States to its knees.

Yada yada yada, demons are confronted, and....

Alright, I won’t spoil anything, but I will say that, at least, like in any cowboy movie, the good guy comes out on top. Too bad the darn thing was anything but entertaining or amusing (I edge-of-my-seated once a little bit during a taking-of-a-train scene, laughed only once as well, and got a kick out of seeing Will Arnett and Michael Fassbender in some supporting roles...but that’s just because I like them). I’d rather see The A-Team again.

My Rating *1/2

Photo: Warner Bros.