Jonah Hex ( 2010 )

Starring: Josh Brolin, Megan Fox, John Malkovich,  Michael Fassbender, & Will Arnett

Directed By Jimmy Hayward

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1075747/

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. Perish it, throw an ax in its heart, then burn it to a crisp.

Brolin is not exactly being challenged here, but he is a very droll fellow, and without his taciturn delivery of some rudimentary zingers, typically delivered after throwing an ax into someone's heart, you'd be stuck wondering what's up with John Malkovich's amusing attempt at a Southern dialect. Or wondering how this short (about 80 minutes minus credits), sour and absurdly violent picture got by with a PG-13 rating. Did the ratings board members all have jury duty the day of the screening?

"Jonah Hex" is the latest DC Comics title to reach the screen. It is best suited to the jaded teenage children of weapons manufacturers. At one point Jonah shreds his enemies with Gatling guns attached to his horse's saddle; at another, he demonstrates a dynamite-loaded crossbow.

In print, John Albano and Tony DeZuniga's tales of an ex-Confederate bounty hunter who has a way of communicating with corpses began in the early 1970s, and soon started wigging out, story wise, in terms of time travel and such. The film's scenario sticks to 1876, focusing on Jonah's quest to kill the insane yet rather dull terrorist played by Malkovich, because he's the one who burned his family alive and then branded Jonah with a terrible branding iron. The adversary plans on destroying America. Director Jimmy Hayward apparently planned on destroying his film with hackwork; he never seems to know how long to sustain a shot (usually not long enough) or where to put the camera in relation to the actors' faces.

Yet if Hayward is, in fact, the one who cast Brolin, well ... that was smart. He nearly saves "Jonah Hex." The film also boasts Michael Fassbender, so good as the Trevor Howard-esque film critic turned Basterd in "Inglourious Basterds." Here he's a gleeful Irish killer in the employ of Malkovich's dour evil genius. Megan Fox and her "feminine wiles and whatnot," as Brolin refers to them, portray the role of Lilah the courtesan, whose cleavage threatens to tear north and south asunder.

Politically "Jonah Hex" is pure Libertarianism, showcasing a hero who spouts off about hypocrites in Washington, D.C., and getting the government off his back. The action rarely relents. It's also rarely interesting, but if for whatever reason you enjoyed the film version of "Wild Wild West," which shares some story traits with this revisionist historical fantasy, you may forgive "Jonah Hex" its soullessness.

( * * ) Mr. What?

Get Him To The Greek ( 2010 )

Starring: Russell Brand, Jonah Hill, Rose Byrne, and Lino Facioli

Directed By Nicholas Stoller

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1226229/

Extremely raunchy, "Get Him to the Greek" is also very funny. Like the film that first paired Jonah Hill and Russell Brand, " Forgetting Sarah Marshall," the new comedy is unexpectedly sincere about the thing that matters most in a relationship: trust. It is also creatively diverse in exploring the ways boy-men -- a misbehaving rock star on drugs, and his star-struck, increasingly addled handler -- will be boy-men.

Yes, that old song again. Needless to say "Get Him to the Greek" comes from producer Judd Apatow's stable. But this we do need to say: The Apatow stable has given us everything from "Superbad" to "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" to "Knocked Up," films devoted to foul-mouthed Peter Pans slouching toward adulthood, each exceptionally rich in comic detail. This latest entry is modest in scope, but it works. It's not heinously slick and calculating the way "The Hangover" was; it actually feels a little bit personal, in the "Almost Famous" vein (though it's a lot crasser in texture, properly so, I think) and the stars are required to act, not simply clown around en route to the next payoff.

"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" director Nicholas Stoller wrote and directed "Get Him to the Greek," and one of its satisfactions is seeing Hill develop into a comic actor confident enough to relax on screen. In "Superbad," Hill played a strident motormouth who couldn't shut up. That's a tough personality to vary (though God knows it was true to millions of strident-motormouth adolescents everywhere). Here, his jowls may fill the frame, but his instincts for hanging back and underplaying come through. There's a sweetness to his portrayal of Aaron, a record-company gofer charged with flying to London from LA to fetch a substance-infested rock star on the wane, played by Brand, for a comeback concert at the Greek Theatre.

Brand's outlandishly narcissistic preener Aldous Snow was introduced in "Sarah Marshall." (In the same film Hill played an entirely different character from the one he plays here.)

Looking like a butch Tiny Tim, his tongue lolling about in a perpetual invitation of some sort, Brand refreshes the cliche of the high-living, inwardly hollow showbiz icon. "Get Him to the Greek" follows a familiar road to redemption, as Aaron becomes hijacked by Aldous' excesses and eventually stands up to his boss. With an effective deadpan, Sean Combs plays the label executive who believes in the supreme power of the mind game.

There's a side trip to Las Vegas, where Snow's estranged father (Colm Meaney) plays guitar in a Rat Pack tribute revue. I suspect audiences may be surprised at how seriously the story takes the father/son conflict.

We're not talking about Greek tragedy (though if they don't get to the Greek, it will of course be sad). As a director, Stoller's touch is uneven: When the trouble becomes violently physical in Vegas, the tone seems uncertain.

The bits I liked best are simple and confined. At one point, in a limo heading to the "Today" show, Snow wants very much to drink and to get high before wrangling with Meredith Vieira. Aaron's job is to prevent this from happening (though elsewhere he acts as his drug dealer, which Aaron grows to resent). As he gets progressively drunker and higher himself, Hill's nauseated reactions are priceless. He and Brand make a swell odd couple, and wisely the script makes time for its supporting players. Rose Byrne and Elisabeth Moss play the true loves of the self-doubting rock god and the wised-up music geek. The movie's a good, rude commercial comedy. How many good movies have we even seen this year?

( * * * ) Mr. What?

Splice ( 2010 )

Starring: Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, & Delphene Chaneac

Directed By Vincenzo Natali

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1017460/



I'm not sure if "Splice" is a great monster movie, but it features a great movie monster.

The film revolves around an unsettling chimera, named "Dren" by her creators. Dren is a lethal mix of lovely human girl and vicious stinging predator DNA -- the result of a reckless secret experiment by two bioengineers (Sarah Polley, Adrien Brody) who barely seem to understand their own motivations.

Dren is delicately played by Delphine Chanéac, with some incredible digital and prosthetic help; when the lighting's just so, she looks a little like Björk with fawn legs. Co-writer/director Vincenzo Natali ("Cube") uses the creature beautifully, flipping Dren from wounded girl to wild animal in a heartbeat. Like the best movie monsters, Dren is both sad and scary, and Natali slowly reveals her full genetic feature set to create some genuine surprises -- even as he takes "Splice" to horrible, uncomfortably dark psychosexual places that wouldn't be out of place in a David Cronenberg flick.

All that said, I wish the humans in the movie were stronger, or at least made a bit more sense.

Polley and Brody are good actors, but their characters aren't particularly compelling on the page. They're famous scientists who don't seem to engage in much actual science, their conversations are a bit drab, and despite their superstar status at the big-pharma company that employs them, they're able to hide a screeching, unholy side-project from their colleagues by -- get this -- turning up the stereo and moving into unused rooms.

(Also, and I know this is a function of the film's low budget, it would be nice if the big-pharma company seemed to employ more than about six people.)

The human factor keeps "Splice" from achieving true poetic-horror greatness; to my thinking, Natali shoots for a thematic richness he doesn't quite realize. But horror fans should still seek the film out for Dren -- one of the most striking abominations to hit the big screen in a while. I'll take something this ambitious over another PG-13 '80s-horror remake any day of the week.

( * * * )

Mr. What?