CrapShoot 2011: Jonah Hex

Watching “The Last Airbender” was like crossing an event horizon that I hoped to never see in my life. When I started this week, I went in hoping to have fun poking at bad movies but all I’ve been treated to so far is bland animation and a cinematic travesty that I am convinced has shaved two years off of my life expectancy. Maybe I’ve been beaten into submission by the horrors of M. Night’s career killer and I’ll freely admit that watching an Uwe Boll movie probably would have been an improvement over subjecting me to that nightmare again. That said however, I find myself shocked and pleasantly surprised to find that the film of the bunch that I expected to spit the most venom at has so far been the most enjoyable of the week. Every element of “Jonah Hex” was calculated for me to hate it; a non-superhero story and character amped up to be over the top to appeal to the lowest common denominator, period inappropriate music despite imagery clearly designed to evoke the feel of a western, Megan Fox acting. Despite all of this, I had an undeniable amount of fun with “Jonah Hex”.

Based on the DC comic book character, “Jonah Hex” features the titular character, portrayed by Josh Brolin, on a quest for revenge against Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), a confederate Civil War veteran that killed his family after disobeying an order to burn down a hospital. The twist; Turnbull is a member of an anarchist cult planning a convoluted plot to plunge the United States into chaos through the use of an impossible war machine.

The key to accepting “Jonah Hex” is to accept the nature of “Jonah Hex”. “Jonah Hex” just may possibly be the dumbest movie that I have come across in recent history and applaud it for that. Jonah speaks to the dead because he almost died, sure. Horse mounted rail guns, why not? An implausible doomsday weapon that puts the mechanical spider from “Wild Wild West” to shame, god speed. This movie is so gloriously stupid that it makes Michael Bay films look like high art. The saving grace of its lack of logic however is that Jonah Hex never takes itself seriously for one second. It’s cheesy but not lazy or pretentious.

A good deal of the enjoyment stems from the surprisingly solid performances of the cast. It’s a shame that the film took the path that it ultimately did (For which I blame the director’s approach and blatant Hollywood influence) because Josh Brolin actually makes for a fantastic Jonah Hex, being dry, sarcastic and angry with just a hint of remorse that make the character himself so compelling. If Warner Bros. ever decides to reboot this property and do it right, I wouldn’t mind seeing him reprise his role. Although John Malkovich’s performance is ultimately forgettable, his Irish sidekick played by Michael Fassbender steals the show whenever he’s onscreen. You can tell he had fun with his role. And of course Megan Fox is Megan Fox. I’d complain about her bland acting but at this point, if she’s decided to spend her career being nothing but eye candy, I’ve given up on expecting more from her.

Clocking in at only 80 minutes in length, “Jonah Hex” is less than 10 minutes over the required length to be a theatrical release. This may be a technical flaw but I truly appreciate its brevity as watching such poor direction and executive mandate over a screenplay that was actually solid probably would have worn on my nerves after a while.

Ultimately, “Jonah Hex” is a fine textbook example of junk food cinema. It is by all means a bad movie and at a time in which studios are finally beginning to treat comic book adaptations with some integrity, it promotes a regressive image that makes me thankful that it was such a huge financial bomb at the box office. That said however, I had genuine fun with it and as far as failures go, it is undoubtedly one of the most entertaining mishandlings of any source material that I have ever seen. And for that, I salute it.

6.5/10 

CrapShoot 2011: The Last Airbender

I sit here at my keyboard speechless, as I write of my experience with what may possibly be one of the most horrendous cinematic abominations that dares to call itself a movie. I am in genuine shock; not since “Battlefield Earth” have I seen a mainstream Hollywood blockbuster fail so spectacularly to tell a story, visually wow or just flat out entertain on every conceivable level possible. How the man that directed the phenomenal “Unbreakable” managed to adapt such a travesty out of one of the best cartoons of the last decade continues to just baffle me but somehow M. Night Shyamalan has managed to create in his adaptation of the critically acclaimed “Avatar: The Last Airbender” a film so god-awful that it should be preserved, studied, and dissected in film classes in lessons of what never to do when telling a story.


“The Last Airbender” is set in a fantasy world in which the civilizations of ancient Asia (or what is supposed to be Asia) are split into 4 groups that each worships a different element of nature: Water, Earth, Fire, and Air. The titular character, Aang, is the last of his people, the Air Nomads, who held a mastery over air and were wiped out by the power-hungry Fire Nation. Shortly before their invasion, Aang learned that he was the most recent airbending reincarnation of the Avatar, a human being capable of mastering all 4 elements and tasked with keeping the peace between the nations, thus the world. Upon the discovery of his destiny, Aang flees before he could receive his training, overwhelmed by the responsibilities that lie ahead of him. Through means that go unexplained however, he somehow gets frozen in an iceberg for 100 years, only to be found by South Pole Water Tribe members and siblings Katara and Sokka who have lived under the oppression of the ruling Fire Nation their entire lives. Together, the group seeks to accomplish the poorly defined goals of the plot that will somehow lead to the restoration of world peace.


This paragraph long synopsis may be one of the hardest things that I have ever had to write because it somehow contains more depth and detail about the story than the entire length of the movie itself. “The Last Airbender” is like being told a spoiler-free plot synopsis of the first season of the cartoon; it gives you enough to know what the point of the story is but fails to give you any of the character development, emotion, twists, revelations, action set pieces, or humor that is actually necessary to make a story satisfying. Never once does this movie truly define the personalities of the actors’ characters, tell you what is supposed to be the goal or motivation of the characters, tell you how they reach certain points and conclusions, or simply give you a reason to care about them. I had to frequently stop the film for entire minutes on hand to rant and rave against the gaping plot holes and inconsistencies that seemed to pop up every minute and a half.


For example, one scene involves Aang, Katara and Sokka being captured by Fire Nation soldiers and imprisoned in a prison camp composed primarily of earthbenders. The earthbenders are completely surrounded by their natural element; why didn’t they revolt against the soldiers before? Furthermore, it is only after this scene that Aang makes the revelation that he must master all of the remaining elements, beginning with water. If he didn’t already know that, where the hell was he even traveling to begin with? I’ve read crappy internet fan fiction with more consistency than this movie.


Every performance is bland and stilted, from newcomer Noah Ringer as Aang to rising stars Nicole Peltz and Jackson Rathbone as his travelling companions. Even real talent like Dev Patel and Shaun Toub, whom I adore in “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Iron Man” respectively, can’t help but go between stoic and overacting thanks to the piss poor material that they are given. The costume design and lame fight choreography only help to further dig the hole that this movie finds itself in within 15 minutes of its opening. It doesn’t help that the casting of the movie is all over the place, such as the main water tribe protagonists and their grandmother conveniently being the only Caucasians in a tribe of Eskimos (Hollywood White-washing or director incompetence? I believe that it’s a little bit of both). Watching convention cosplayers give a stage performance of fight sequences without wiring would probably look more convincing than any scene of this movie.


Even the special effects are highly unremarkable. When the bending doesn’t look like unconvincing CGI, it lacks the speed, impact or fury to really feel like an attack that was meant to hurt somebody. Special mention to the dull grey barely visible wind effect on the airbending and the pathetic flames of the fire bending that look like they can extinguished by turning on my bedroom ceiling fan.


I was ready to dislike this one, I was ready to watch a film that was more than likely going to be utter garbage and I was more than ready to type up a scathing review afterward but I could not have prepared myself for what I just sat through no matter how hard I tried. I knew there were some stinkers on the list that I have lined up but I am now officially walking away with battle scars on my very soul. “The Last Airbender” is so light on actual content and substance that it makes cotton candy look like a steak dinner by comparison yet makes 90 minutes feel like almost 3 hours.


It is not simply a bastardization of a terrific source material but the final nail in the coffin for M. Night Shyamalan’s credibility as a filmmaker, an embarrassment that every actor involved is dying to put behind them, and is far beyond the shadow of a doubt, one of the worst theatrically released movies that I have ever seen in my life and I feel dumber for having sat through it. Don’t suffer my fate and avoid it like the plague. After watching this, I feel that I now have to rewatch the series, despite pulling what I had intended to be a final viewing of it last summer, just to remove the bad taste from my mouth. All I can do is pray that this is as low as it gets.


1.5/10