For me, Jonah Hex is the most aggravating kind of movie – you can see it has the potential to be an intriguing film and yet its makers fail to develop its most unique elements. Based on the long-running DC comics series about a physically and psychologically scarred confederate officer who tries to find his way after the Civil War, the film is part traditional western and part “wild, wild west” with dashes of the supernatural thrown in. Problem is, the script fails to delve deeply into any of these angles and we’re left with a meandering movie that never catches fire.

Josh Brolin, who’s very good, is Hex, a bounty hunter who’s on the trail of his former commanding officer Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich), the man responsible for the death of his wife and son and who intends to disrupt the nation’s centennial celebration with a massive cannon that can wipe out whole towns in the blink of an eye. Seems Hex has a nifty way of tracking his prey as he’s able to commune with the dead, among them some of Turnbull’s former men who he reanimates long enough to gather information about the madman’s plot.

The scenes in which Hex raises the dead are the film’s most effective. Director Jimmy Hayward generates a sense of horror and dread that introduces an intriguing twist amid the tired genre conventions at work here. Unfortunately, they don’t go to this well often enough and what we’re left with is Brolin single-handedly trying to keep things afloat, Malkovich phoning in his performance and Megan Fox wasted in an underwritten role as a prostitute Jonah finds solace with. Had Hex mined its supernatural angle further and delved into its character a bit more, it might have been a unique entertainment in this bland summer. As it is, it’s a horse opera that needs to be put out of its misery.

Contact Chuck Koplinski at [email protected].