Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin) is a man who’s had his entire family taken away from him.  He’s out for revenge, but until then he’s going to walk the earth collecting the bounties of the men who’ve done wrong.  One day the military comes to him door requesting his services in order to catch Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), the man who murdered his family.  Hex quickly saddles up and heads out to find the man that took everything from him.

Yesterday I found myself burdened with having to decide between watching an 80 minute film that was panned by critics or do I go outside and try my best to watch the world turn?  Somehow I decided to stay inside, and as I think back to why I’d like to think it was because I consider myself a good blogger/critic.  I know that you need to know why not to watch this movie.  You, yes you reading this, need to be told that this movie is one of those movies that you just have to avoid, or make sure to be properly intoxicated when watching it.

The film begins with the story of Turnbull killing Hex’s family and once that is over we’re immediately thrown into this cartooned credit sequence which I know was intentionally made to look like a sucky comic book but it didn’t help the film’s case.  Once that is over we are thrust into Hex’s bounty hunting work as he has reached a town where he’s dropping off a few dead bodies to collect the bounty owed to him.  He shows us that his character, as brutal as he is, is honourable and never takes what isn’t owed to him and only asks that you act honourable towards him as well.  As great as a character point as that is when it’s serviced by sloppy rehashes of dialogue that we’ve heard Clint Eastwood deliver time and time again in films like A Fistful of Dollars all you can do is laugh at the film rather than with it.  The film scene after scene becomes this wash of poorly written dialogue and over-the-top acting that completely justifies my initial question: is this worse than Wild Wild West?

What this movie gave me that many others already did was the role of the slightly psychotic evil sidekick, Burke (Michael Fassbender).  Fassbender is the actor to watch for today.  His roles in films like Hunger, Fish Tank and Inglorious Basterds is what makes him the actor of this upcoming decade that we’ll probably be hearing the most about.  He takes this ridiculous character and makes him a joy to watch from start to finish.  Whenever the film forgot about itself and had Burke in frame I started to forget that I was watching a bad movie.

Overall the film is bad.  There are no real redeeming qualities in it other than one supporting performance from Fassbender.  The movie is one of those that need to be dumped into a reservoir and forgotten.  This film can stand next to X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Spiderman 3 as evidence as to why the big blockbuster comic book movies should end.

IMDB says 4.5/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 13%

I say 2.0/10