Jonah Hex 2010

S. James Snyder, Chicago Tribune: With a total running time that barely hits 80 minutes, it's hard to believe they even paid [John] Malkovich and [Megan] Fox to show up. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Here's how you know Josh Brolin has become a movie star: Jonah Hex may not be much with him, but without him? Perish the thought. Read more

Mary F. Pols, MSN Movies: The movie is laughable, but it's not funny, not even in a camp way. Read more

Keith Phipps, AV Club: Every once in a while, a film limps into theaters so stitched together, it's a wonder it doesn't rip apart in the projector. Jonah Hex is such a film. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: Take the intriguing premise of a punk-rock Western based on a graphic novel, populate it with a good cast, add striking visuals and you come up with...a real mess. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: The movie began life as a macabre postbellum western for DC Comics. Now it's lumbering action-camp following a video game plot. Read more

Cliff Doerksen, Chicago Reader: Begins affably enough as a random slew of Leone-style squint-a-thons and shoot-outs but then loses it way in a dopey, anachronism-happy sci-fi plot. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: It's hard to have any thoughts while watching Jonah Hex -- the cranium-crushing soundtrack takes care of that. Read more

Tom Maurstad, Dallas Morning News: Jonah Hex is cut-and-paste filmmaking at its crudest. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: [Brolin] is done in by the deathless mediocrity of the production, an assemblage of random camera shots, messy editing, redundant scenes, and witless dialogue as haphazardly stitched together as the flesh on Jonah Hex's face. Read more

David Germain, Associated Press: So short, and so bad, you cringe at the thought of how awful whatever ended up on the cutting-room floor must be. Read more

Betsy Sharkey, Los Angeles Times: In the comic book tradition, the story weaves between the real and the mythical, but it's a very boozy trip. Brolin's intermittent voice-over narration proves to be the most powerful stuff, with the rest curiously sputtering. Read more

Nick Pinkerton, L.A. Weekly: Bracingly inept. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: There's just one ingredient missing: anyone with a clue. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: Brolin strides around talking to the dead and destroying things, mostly the good will he garnered after surprising everyone with No Country for Old Men and W. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: If all you want is a bullets-and-bombs B-movie, you'll get your money's worth: Somehow, Hayward makes 82 minutes feel like hours. Read more

Kyle Smith, New York Post: The Western, with its code of short tempers and cheap life, sprang from the Civil War, but few Westerns connect the dots to demonstrate how the war must have created hollow nihilists the way Jonah Hex does. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: Jonah Hex is a good performance and a few good lines buried in a script whose authors should do a little time in writer's hell for scribbling it. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: Mercifully fleet and lamentably uninteresting... Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: If this represents the true vision of director Jimmy Hayward, then I have only one question: What was he thinking? Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: It's based on some DC Comics characters, which may explain the way the plot jumps around. We hear a lot about graphic novels, but this is more of a graphic anthology of strange occult ideas. Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: Director Jimmy Hayward fails to establish a viable reason for this movie to exist. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: It isn't just that no effort is expended on old-fogey ideas like character development; it's more that Hayward doesn't even try to make individual scenes make sense. Read more

Amy Biancolli, San Francisco Chronicle: I think Jonah Hex could have exceeded 80 minutes to make room for some real visual invention. And three-dimensional characters. And a plot. A plot would have been nice. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: This is industrially processed entertainment at it cheapest, nastiest and greasiest. Read more

Stephen Cole, Globe and Mail: Calling Jonah Hex a waste of time requires qualification, given the action flick weighs in at 82 minutes. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: This looked to be a priority project by Warner Bros. at one point -- that is until cash spigot got turned off. The special effects are really cheesy, even by comic-book standards. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: At 81 minutes with credits, Jonah Hex feels crude, lazy and entirely perfunctory. Read more

Keith Uhlich, Time Out: All three of you clamoring for a sequel to Wild Wild West have got your wish. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Some movies seem so blatant an effort to appeal to a specific target audience that they ought to come with a viewers' advisory warning. Read more

Justin Chang, Variety: The film's noisy, slam-bang approach and lack of imagination in all nonvisual departments will keep it from rounding up a fresh generation of thrill-seekers. Read more

Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post: Jonah Hex may not be the longest 81 minutes you ever spend, but it might well be the most tedious. Read more