Hey folks, Harry here... Ya know - I seem to remember being accused of being in Avi Arad's pocket... remember that private screening of THE HULK? Remember my BLADE II rave? Oh yes, and my raves for SPIDER-MAN and DAREDEVIL? Hell, David Poland wrote that I basically had PROPERTY OF MARVEL stamped on my ass. Hmmm... What happened? A rotten piece of shit called THE PUNISHER. Now - if you want to believe that this has more in common with the films of Don Siegel, John Boorman and John Frankenheimer, than the films of Michael Bay & Simon West like Moriarty said, well... shit man, get in line, go see the movie... have fun! I love MARVEL comics and most of their recent films... This reminds of that CAPTAIN AMERICA, FANTASTIC FOUR, PUNISHER period of films when Marvel's name was mud and DC ruled the Box Office. By all means, go see this movie! Check it out! I DARE YOU! But don't say I didn't warn you.
First off I just want to say that living in Tampa it was cool getting to have an actual Hollywood movie filmed here, and being a fan of the Punisher it made it all the more "exciting." But this movie is just about the worst movie watching experience of my life.
Back in October and throughout filming they ran the dailies where I work, well being a fan of the comic I could help but take peeks every now and again. After watching hours of Thomas Jane being blown into the water, and Travolta playing golf I decided I didn't stick around to see much else hoping that maybe once through the editing room this film could get better.
So flash-forward to this past Tuesday night when I see the Punisher print that has to be built, well I know I'm going to screen it that night, but damn did I wish after I had been more prepared.
It all begins in some kind of a metal shipping yard where an arms deal is going down, Mr. Bad Ass Frank Castle is going undercover with blond highlights and a bad Russian accent but not speaking Russian, to seal the deal with the Son of Howard Saint and one of Howard's Lackeys that just wont go away during this film, the deals made then goes sour as a gun gets pulled and the bullets fly, in the end it's our Frank Castle and Howard Saint's son dead, to bad for us Castle was only shot with blanks.
After Frank's retirement it's time to return home to young hot wife Samantha Mathis and the whiny son that I couldn't wait to get run over, once he announces to his family he's out for good and it's a desk job in London well of course lets celebrate our family reunion in Puerto Rico.
Well, this is of course where the entire family is gunned down on orders from Howard's wife....As a side note this was just stupid how they reveal the wife never showing her face till at her sons funeral only to lift her vale to tell the gay henchman to kill the family.
As in the preview we see a very hagered schieder give a speech that is just blah blah blah pointless jargon to make us care and realize how close this family is but guess what the audience really won't care. This is also when Frank is given a gift from his son to ward off evil spirits, yes it's the PUNISHER SKULL SHIRT, this one time bad ass logo now has it's origins of coming from a Puerto Rican voodoo guy that sells shirts to kids, come on how scary is that? So everyone gets killed the next day pretty much in a style you would see in a bad Miami Vice episode.
So Frank is just drifting in the water after being shot, beaten, and blown up but still lives to be saved by Voodoo guy.
Time passes and Frank comes back to Tampa to kick some ass...
But instead we see him get a shitty apartment living next to Jean or whoever played by the wife of the Lucky Bastard John Stamo's...and has two other neighbors Bumbo and some guy with piercings all over. Bumbo and Metal face are supposed to be comedy relief and it's just distracting from the point that this is a REVENGE film.
After stealing guns and ammo out of the FBI storage facility that most not be guarded since all he does is walk up to it and take what he wants, Frank gears up and prepairs to kick ass....No wait I mean shoot two guys at Saint's bank and dump a shit load of money out a window saving a briefcase full for himself.
Later we see Will Patten make out with a junkie, an El Mariachi in joke with Howard Hech who later drives in a lime green el comino, and dinner with the annoying neighbors.
Finally there is action when Saint calls in the Russian to Kill CASTLE. This is the only good scene in the movie. A good knock drag down fight, Kevin Nash should play a lowly henchman more often. After being flung through walls and grenades blowing up toilets, it takes having to be thrown through the neighbors front door to get the neighbors attention about what's gone on.
Now skipping past the torture scene that comes off as silly cause you just know the Will Patten character just wanted to make out with the metal face guy. Now we have Frank Castle framing Patten and Saints wife having an affair so Saint kills them both not realizing it can't be true cause obviously Patten is gay.
Suddenly it's the final showdown, with Castle killing henchman in Saints club and blowing it up. As Saint attempts to escape he is shot in the back and told that he killed his own son, wife and best friend. As you pray for this movie to finally end Travolta is tied to the back of a car and is drug into a car lot that explodes making the skull logo for those to see from high above.
With a final word to the audience warning that he is going to begin his Punishment, I ran out of the theater and hid praying that another film like this is never made again. I hated this film, I never cared about Castle if anything I felt bad for Saint. The action had no originality it was just bang bang your dead.
Thankfully this movie opens up against KILL BILL which is sure to kick it's ass, hell one chapter of Kill Bill will stand alone better than the entire Punisher. May the duel of the two vigilante films begin April 16th.
Here's another rave...
I have not read the comic book and know nothing about it. I am judging the movie and the movie alone. I hope that my comments won't be taken as bashing the comic book. Not my intention at all.
Anyway, I was looking forward to this. I like Thomas Jane and Will Patton a lot, and Travolta can be good when he wants to be. The trailer made me think that it could be a pretty kick ass, nasty action movie. If memory serves, Moriarty over at AICN raved about this a month or so ago. I have to question his sanity now. OK, it's not that bad. But it certainly isn't good either. Nothing more than a routine action flick. While watching, I felt like I had seen this movie about 1,000 times before.
The opening is hilariously awful. Late at night at an empty shipping dock in Tampa Bay, a couple of young morons with a suitcase full of money are waiting for their business partner to arrive. One of them says, in awe, that he he speaks six languages and then lists them off. Then, the man appears. He speaks with a thick accent and his name is Omar something or other. But wait, actually it's Frank Castle.
Frank makes a quick trade with the men: cash for guns. Suddenly, the FBI storms in. Waving his arms around like a lunatic, armed no less, Frank gets himself shot. One of the two morons soon does the same. There's a brief shootout, which is staged and edited so poorly one can only laugh out loud. It's straight out of a really bad B-movie. You start to wonder if everything that follows will be this bad.
Of course, Frank isn't dead. The bullets that shot him were blanks. Just doing his job, which was his last. Unfortunately for him, the dead moron is the son of Howard Saint (Travolta). Frank heads off to Puerto Rico for a vacation with his wife, son and extended family (before moving to London). Howard and his wife bury their child.
Next there are a couple of painfully corny and hokey scenes that are supposed to establish how much Frank loves his family. First he has a little heart to heart with his wife, then his son. He has to explain why they move so much to his confused child. Mercifully, they're short, but pretty weak all the same.
It doesn't take long for Howard to figure out Frank's real identity and determine that he is responsible for his son 's death. He sends his goons, led by Quentin Glass (Will Patton) down to Puerto Rico to kill Frank. Then, in one of countless heavy-handed and unintentionally hilarious scenes, the camera cuts to Howard's wife's black veil, with the music swelling. She slowly lifts her head up and says, "Kill them all." Funny stuff.
Seconds later, Quentin, Howard's other son and a bunch of heavily armed bad guys have surrounded the house in Puerto Rico where Frank and his family are staying. There are a lot of people there, including Frank's parents (Roy Scheider is his dad). The bad guys start shooting, killing nearly everyone, save for Frank, his wife and son. His wife and son have escaped in an SUV, with the bad guys hot on their tail. Frank is following them on a motorcycle.
Despite his best efforts, Frank can't save his family. Howard's other son shoots him in the chest and leaves him for dead. They blow up the dock Frank is bleeding to death on, but miraculously he gets blown safely into the water, and survives. Now it's time for some vengeance.
Using the other moron from the beginning, who now works as Howard's assistant, Frank begins to plot his revenge, which he views as punishment. He makes Howard very mad by doing things like throwing tons of money out the window of his highrise office building and killing some of his henchmen.
Meanwhile, Frank has some new neighbors. He makes his new home a dumpy apartment in a dumpy building. Soon three people are trying to be his friend. Joan (Rebecca Romijn Stamos), David (Ben Foster) and some big guy named Jumbo or Gumbo or something like that. They are all outcasts in some way. This subplot is both a massive waste of time and seriously overdone. It tries to humanize Frank (with cliches) and add humor. But the humor is forced and out of place. It doesn't belong in this movie. The three neighbors are also extremely obnoxious and annoying. Frank would have been better off shooting all three. They aren't good for much besides getting on your nerves. Of course, a love story starts to blossom between Frank and Joan, which is even more forced and out of place. Thankfully, not much time is spent on it.
In the end, I didn't really like much about this movie. There is one very lively and entertaining action scene between Frank and a huge Russian guy sent to kill him. The Russian guy beats him to a pulp, which is strange because Howard wants Frank dead more than anything in the world. Yet the Russian just toys with him and wastes many chaces to kill him. Still, it's a fun scene, one of the only in the movie to show a little wit and imagination.
The remainder is totally standard crap for the genre. Normally, I like Jane. But he is trying way too hard here. In every scene it looks as if he is struggling to be as stoic and tough as the director wanted. It's a strained performance. He is not all that compelling of a character. Just another guy out for revenge. Nothing new there. You hardly got to know his family so you don't feel his pain. At the same time, you don't like him so much that you care about what happens to him.
Lately, I have been really disappointed with the villains in action movies. I am thinking of movies like XXX, Bad Boys 2 and 2 Fast 2 Furious. Villains used to be the best part of the movie, back when Gary Oldman and Alan Rickman played them. Now they are just lame. They aren't menacing or threatening anymore. Add Howard Saint to the list. He has little screen time (Travolta doesn't have many scenes until the conclusion) and never registers. Travolta underplays him, and while it's good that he didn't ham it up, it also makes him incredibly boring. He never makes an impression. Patton is a good actor but he has the typical second in command role. Nothing special about it, save for his character being gay.
At this point, I'm not sure who composed it (I just got back from seeing it), but I also hated the score. It's terrible. Seemed like it belonged in another movie.
I wish I had more positive things to say about The Punisher, but I didn't find much to like. The story, the action, the writing, the directing, the acting; all about as routine and predictable as it gets. It only manages to come to life during a few brief action sequences. Otherwise, the entire movie has a been there, done that feeling to it. I have no idea how faithful it is to the comic, or how people who love the comic will feel about it. All I know is, I was pretty damn bored most of the time.
4/10
This just in...
Hi Harry,
I saw Punisher during one of the free screenings in MD.
I'll keep it short and simple.
Suck.
The first hour and a half the movie is about some guy named Frank Castle, who seems to have nothing to do with any Marvel character but rather some attempt by a hack screen writer to put his own spin on things.
During this hour and a half yawn fest you see bits and piece of the last 2-3 years of Punisher plots and characters all mashed down into one - further making no real sense or continuity. Character development you say? Maybe, but it wasn't good.
It wasn't until the last 20 minutes of the movie that the real Punisher makes his appearance. He dispatches foes in usual Punisher style - and that was great. Its too bad you have to sit through 1.5 hours of crap to get to something good. The only good note is that the movie ends with you set-up for maybe, possible, a real Punisher movie to come in the future.
Please tell me, Harry, why Hollywood continues to butcher comic book movies. Last time I checked there were already years of character plots, twists, development and continuity. Why do this screenwriters think they can do it better? When will Marvel wake up and give the rest of their movies to Sam? SUS SUS Save Us Sam.
Call me Horse
That's all I have in the ol email box about the film, wow -- seems sterling!
