Review of The Punisher (2004) by Kyle M — 20 Mar 2016

When I look back at 2004, I realize that it was the year where I had a lot of regrets. And saying at the time that this movie was the best comic book movie out there is one of those regrets. After the miserable failure from their 1989 flick, Lionsgate Films decided to give it a shot by buying up the filming rights and put their own twist on things by making the story and plot mainly based on two of the Punisher comic book stories. Which were Punisher: Year One and Welcome Back, Frank. However, it would appear that not everyone seemed to have enjoyed this and looking back on it I can see why it doesn't hold the same awesomeness to me when I was 17-years-old. But then again when I was 17, I was mostly contemplating on what to do for the rest of my life so...on with the review!

The plot of this movie makes just a little bit more sense this time around. Only instead of L.A. they take it to Florida, which is...kinda sorta on the right track. But only this time around, not only do a bunch of mobsters kill Frank Castle's wife and kid; they also go to his family reunion bbq and kill his mom, his dad, Cousin Jerry, little niece Sheila, and pretty much anyone else in the Frank Castle family tree is massacred in that scene. I never thought about it until now, but God damn that just feel like over kill. The antagonist's in this movie feel completely out of place except for the two hitmen. John Travolta's character looks and acts like a tired overweight Vincent Vega who mostly whines and has a hissy hit whenever The Punisher foils one of his operations. And that was another problem which was Thomas Jane as The Punisher himself. Sure he may look and sound the part, but acts way too much like a boy scout. Like he goes around telling abusive ex-boyfriends "Don't play with knives" or "I'm going to burn your back with a torch" but uses a cold ice pop instead. After his family is killed, he spends an hour of this movie setting up these elaborate plans to have John Saint kill his friend and wife which is utterly pointless, steal his money, and interrupt just ONE drug shipment. The only "punishing" that he does in the second half is kill two goons in a lobby and two out of town hitmen that John Saint hired. One of them being The Russian who is the ONLY comic book character that came from the Punisher comics. Well...the fourth character if you include his three neighbors in this movie who each of them have their own individual personality which was okay for the most part. The third act was about the only time where it really gets going with The Punisher finally doing what he should have done an hour ago. And that is stock up on every arsenal you have and go all out. It was about as entertaining as chewing a new stick of gum. Very flavorful, but ends pretty quickly. The soundtrack is okay as well if you're in the mood for some pump up music. Overall, this movie has more of a step up but with a bad execution and yet it left us wanting more. But it never happened and the closet we ever came to something like that was a Punisher cameo at the end of Spider-Man 2. Look it up, he's in there. Which is why I give this a two out of five stars.