Review of The Punisher (2004) by Lianna M — 25 Nov 2013

Every casting of The Punisher has been vastly different, Thomas Jane's portrayal of Frank Castle is quite good, he's smaller than the other two, but that's fine. Honestly I think Thomas Jane is a good addition to any film, a decision I made after watching him in The Punisher when I bought the DVD on a whim back in 2006. Much like it's 1989 predecessor, The Punisher is quite grounded in reality, the closest thing that they have to a larger than life villain is a muscular Russian who doesn't speak. It's not necessarily a good thing, as the film's meant to be about a comic book character.

Speaking of comic books, this film is vastly different from the comics it is based on. It doesn't go in to effecting my final score of the film, but you have to be careful when you know you're gonna be pissing the fan boys off. Having said that, the fan boys were very pissed off about the Casting of Jane in the leas role, when in actual fact he's the best thing in the film, so maybe the fan boys should just shut the fuck up.

It's not exactly anything we haven't seen before, in fact, much like the original Punisher it's more or less a carbon copy of Mad Max, right down to the suped-up armoured car. It has this interesting feel of a little bit serious thriller, a little bit Super Hero action and a little bit comedy, yet it fails to knock into any of t he three categories, and instead sort of sits around somewhere in the middle, not really doing a whole lot, which is one of the films weakest points.

John Travolta was an interesting choice of villain. I can't decide whether I found him believable or not. He can pull off mobster fine but I don't know that I like the direction his character went in, or the character at all. The Punisher is just a sort of deal that needs to be dark, Travolta doesn't pull it off, the setting of Florida doesn't pull it off, a singing assassin doesn't pull it off, and the quirky kids-next-door-sidekicks don't pull it off.

All that aside, there's not really anything that's strictly speaking bad about the film, in comparison to its one or two things that I would classify as good. I review this film independently from its franchise, particularly its comic book origins, and if I didn't I'd have to mark it as a complete failure. But if you go in there with no knowledge of The Punisher, or pretending you have no knowledge of The Punisher, it works pretty damn well as a stand alone action movie, more than it does a Super Hero film.

63%.

-Gimly.