Superhero Media: Jonah Hex (2010)

To paraphrase Hedley Lamarr, "How did they make such a poor film with such a great cast?" Josh Brolin, Michael Fassbender, Will Arnett, John Malkovich and Megan Fox, who yes, is a decent actor in case you only ever saw her in Transformers. In the last days of American Civil War, Confederate soldier Jonah Hex is betrayed by his commanding officer and left for dead, but is rescued by a Crow Medicine Man and brought back to life, almost. Having been dead for a while, Hex can reach into that realm and perform plot-relevant tricks when he needs to. Just how much magic works in the setting is never really explained, which grates, as all of the steampunk technology is throughly explained as the work of Eli Whitney and a side-character named "Smith" who I swear is a reference to Evil Roy Slade of all things. Also there's a side-plot with a dog that doesn't seem to mean anything; did Hex have a dog in the comics? 

Not that I've read too many Jonah Hex comics, but what I do know is that the film really only seems to take the basic ideas of the protagonist and throw them into a remake of Wild Wild West. Evil Confederate General, seemingly back from the dead, builds a steampunk super weapon to prevent a major event in American history, it's all there, just with a worse filter and no opportunity to read deeper into it. Fun fact, it took me three attempts to get through Jonah Hex, the first two times I gave up after the opening scene with horse-mounted Gatling guns and the first speaking to the dead sequence respectively. I just about never stop watching a film, so that's a good indication of how poor Jonah Hex really is. Hell, Michael Fassbender plays an Irish terrorist with Creole tattoos and a vendetta against Hex, but I can't even recall his name, motivation or what he does other than being killed by a paddle-wheel in the second act. What a waste. 

Then again, could a decent Jonah Hex film really be made? The comics are strange and often meditative, with a magic-heavy setting and morality only existing in shades of grey, none of which tend to make for popular cinema. That said, Hex himself features in episodes of Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League, and that works pretty well. Oddly, I think the answer is to not bother explaining how the magic works or why Hex can speak to the dead, there's been enough superhero films that people will probably just take that for granted now and let the action happen. Westerns kind of being "done" doesn't help either, but I do believe it could be re-contextualized as a genre piece with the right team behind it, but that's probably a really big ask. For now, I suggest tracking down the BTAS episode for a more enjoyable watch.