If you like exploding heads, ‘Punisher: War Zone’ is the movie to beat!”
“If you wanna hear some of the worst New Yawk accents in film history, don’t miss “Punisher: Kill Zone!”
OK, I’ve tried my best to give the ad reps behind the new Punisher movie a quote for the movie posters.
Wait … “the most unintentional laughter you’ll hear all winter!”
That’s it. I’m out.
“Punisher: War Zone” marks the third time Hollywood has tried to bring the Marvel Comics vigilante to the big screen. Neither Dolph Lundgren nor Thomas Jane could make the character his own, so it’s up to “Rome’s” Ray Stevenson to do the honors.
But the newest “Punisher” is all B-movie, all the time. Poor Stevenson never had a chance.
The story is a franchise reboot, joining the story of The Punisher, AKA Frank Castle (Stevenson), already in progress. He’s squaring off against a rising New York mobster (Dominick West, who sounds like a dinner theater actor attemping a Bronx accent), and he deposits the goon in a glass crushing machine.
But the thug doesn’t die. Instead, he’s reborn as Jigsaw, a villain whose facial deformities make The Joker look like Brad Pitt.
Now Jigsaw’s out for vengeance, and he springs an old pal appropriately named Loony Bin Jim (Doug Hutchison) from the local sanitarium to help.
Hutchison owns the movie from this point on, bringing the right amount of pulp to this very bloody affair.
In between Jim’s theatrics, we watch as the local cops do their best to track down The Punisher. The Keystone Kops have nothing on these guys. It’s no wonder New York City needs a vigilante to take a bite out of crime.
“War Zone” tries to keep a straight face in the early scenes, but midway through all pretenses toward serious crime fiction go down the drain. And that’s a good thing, since “War Zone” only clicks when it embraces its infantile approach to a very serious antihero.
A friend in the know about comic books says The Punisher works best when paired up with real superheroes. Spider-Man might think twice before killing a supervillain, but The Punisher has no such qualms. It’s what makes him so compelling in the first place.
Maybe the next “Punisher” movie will include the web slinger – or any other Marvel hero who might justify yet another attempt to bring The Punisher to your local theater.
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(Photo: Ray Stevenson is all guns, all the time, as the vigilante anti-hero in “Punisher: Kill Zone.”)
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Around 1991, I resumed collecting comics, including The Punisher titles, for a few years
Most of the titles/issues were unmemorable. He was a vigilante, but judicious and of fairly sound mind. That is, the bad guys got what was coming to them but the good guys he didn’t touch.
However, there was one particularly interesting issue that touched on the undeclared sociopathy of the character.
As best as I can recall, this is how it went.
In a fairly well-t0-do man’s home, a teenager is babysitting the man’s toddler/infant when a home invasion occurs. For some reason, the Punisher is around and he dispatches the thugs, while the girl is in terror.
It turns out that the infant/toddler’s father set up the home invasion (maybe for insurance purposes).
Days later, the Punisher walks into the man’s office and kills him.
The man may have been blackmailed or something, but there was something mitigating the man’s actions. He meant no harm to the girl–maybe she wasn’t supposed to be there. Something went wrong.
And the man had a little kid to take care of (I don’t remember if there was a wife–I doubt it).
It would have been best for the man to have lived, so that the child had a father, especially if he was being forced to stage the home invasion.
But, Castle had a code–no exceptions.
In all of the other issues, the dividing line between who met swift justice and who didn’t was quite clear.
In this case, it wasn’t.
It was the only time I saw the character as a true sociopath.
It was the only time I was fascinated with the character, wondering what was going on his head.
If anyone else remembers this issue, let me know what I got wrong.
Thanks.
Interesting … and far more intriguing than anything in the first three “Punisher” flicks.
dang, too bad they didn’t bring back Thomas Jane to be Frank Castle again
i remember that issue David. i started collecting comics around that period and i have most if not all of the punisher comics from that run which is for the most part not that memorable like david pointed out.
after i finished college i started reading comics again and in 2000 i think Garth Ennis started writing punisher. i picked up the first few issues and was blown away. i knew ennis was a good writer from his stuff on Preacher and hellblazer. during ennis’s 8 year run on the comic he tackled such issues as the irish mob,russians,young women being sold off as prostitutes and a recent storyline where all the widows of the mob bosses went after the punisher. when marvel decided to move punisher to their max line of mature comics is when it was at its best it was gritty and pretty much anything was game. Ennis has been writing a new book called ‘The Boys’ which is being optioned for a movie as well and for ayone that was offended by ‘preacher’ they might not want to read this book.