Review of The Punisher (2004) by Julian T — 13 Dec 2011
An all around waste of a movie. The Punisher is one of Marvel's most popular characters, and I would have thought the studio would have tried to find a director who had read a Punisher comic book at one point in his life. Unfortunately, Hensleigh clearly never has, as he misses the mark on nearly all counts here.
Instead of being the incredibly bad-ass vigilante criminal assassin who makes outlaws piss their pants at the sound of his name, the Punisher is instead reduced to a long distance string-puller who is more afraid of the criminals than they are of him.This makes for a pretty boring attempt at an action film.
The acting here is not the problem. Jane does all he can with the bastardized character he is given. Patton, Scheider and Travolta do their best as well. The real problem is a slow moving plot, a mediocre script, and all around disrespect to the source material.
Unfortunately, the rebooted Punisher film, 'Punisher: War Zone' is completely wrong in the other direction. Somebody needs to take both of the Punisher films, and mash them together. Then maybe we'd have an accurate representation of the character.
This review of The Punisher (2004) was written by Julian T on 13 Dec 2011.
The Punisher has generally received mixed reviews.
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