"Jonah Hex" Movie Trailer Review

"Jonah Hex" Movie Trailer Review

By our guest blogger, Rob Stammitti

"Jonah Hex" has been a curious project since it started development a while ago. It's based on a rather obscure (by typical standards) comic series about a scarred bounty hunter seeking revenge on the men who murdered his family and left him for dead--typical Western stuff, really, but the newly released trailer reveals it be a lot more crazy and explosive than that.

It was written by the Neveldine/Taylor team, responsible for "Gamer" and the "Crank" films, and it certainly looks like something they'd come up with--the action looks absolutely insane, and the wild and colorful cast of characters is definitely up their alley. Josh Brolin seems perfectly cast as Jonah, and the rest of the cast is pretty spectacular--we've got John Malkovich and Michael Fassbender as the two villains, Michael Shannon as a circus ringleader, Will Arnett as a Union soldier, and Megan Fox as Jonah's femme-fatale partner. The names that really stick out here are Malkovich and Fassbender. They're both criminally underrated and the idea of them portraying a villainous duo is just amazing.

This will be Jimmy Hayward's first live-action film after previously directing "Robots" and "Horton Hears a Who." Kind of a weird jump, but he seems to have adjusted well enough, and based on Neveldine/Taylor's previous directorial work, I think someone else helming their scripts will help reign in their rather messy and simplistic approach to things.

Basically, this is a pretty exciting trailer. It could pan out in either direction, though--could be the next "Shoot 'Em Up," or it could be the next "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." As of right now, though, I'm leaning toward the former. High hopes for this one.

"Jonah Hex" is set to kick off the summer movie season on June 18, 2010. Trailer is below. Thoughts?