Jonah Hex

** - Ahhhh… the hubris of the evil super villain. How often have we seen the arrogance and need to rub a hero’s nose in his anticipated defeat end up being the ultimate undoing of the seemingly victorious antagonist? I’d have to say that that type of occurrence is a staple of superhero media, very common in thrillers, and the final outcome of roughly 90% of all Bond films and books. Add 2010’s “Jonah Hex” to that list. Based on a DC Comics property, this movie features Josh Brolin as a disfigured Civil War veteran who seeks out revenge on a garishly evil John Malkovich and his Irish lackey (who inexplicably has a beard tattooed on his face) after they roast his family to death in their own wooden Unabomber-style shack. Meanwhile, some sort of clumsy romantic subplot is flailed at between Hex and the skanky broad from the “Transformers” movies to no particular resolution (other than her becoming the requisite damsel in distress in the film’s climax). There’s a fair amount of action and gun slinging and explosions, but none of it is either grandiose or original enough to be very memorable. I like action movies to be short, but if you subtract the ending credit sequence this movie clocks in at just over 70 minutes. It could probably have used a bit more meat in it in order to flesh out a decent plot.