The Punisher

The Punisher is not what it pretended to be in the trailer or what it appears to be from the stills. It’s not a dark, visually appealing comic-book action movie about grandiose revenge. Though it is actually about revenge, the ways in which screenwriter and director Jonathan Hensleigh presents it start out with hackneyed Seagalisms and continue with a dozen cheap one-liners as the film becomes an unintentional parody of itself. The only takeaway from the The Punisher is the unexpected, amusing elimination of the bad guys. (04/29/2004)

When the best thing about a whole movie is the main character's shirt, something is wrong. To be fair, though, there are two scenes that make this nonsense is survivable: the initial disposal of Castle's family has a certain amount of impact, and the fight with the Russian muscle-head to the accompaniment of an operatic aria, which is not without its comic exaggeration. The rest, full of ridiculous, pathetic poses, does not do credit to the creators, nor to the fluffy and dynamic comic book premise itself. Although I think Travolta shouldn't climb in front of the camera anymore, here he was mysteriously tolerable, while the mediocre Thomas Jane might not need a Shakespearean training for such a role, but I resisted the onslaught of my diaphragm every time I saw his badass face. But during the scene when the elevator goes up and there's Thomas turning on it, with a taut body under his tattered tank top and a harsh look on his face, I burst out laughing, I really couldn't help it :) (07/14/2007)

“We aren’t just happy, we’re crazy! " Well, I understand why The Punisher became a cult movie in certain circles. An ingeniously bad movie. You need a real big does of talent to film something... like this. After just a couple of minutes of watching, you will tell yourself that it couldn’t be any stupider. But the opposite applies, unfortunately. Every word is outrageously bad. The Punisher is a movie that you won’t forget for a long time and one that will always brighten your day. So what if the effect is completely different than intended by the creators? (11/01/2007)

The main reason why The Punisher failed is the script. It fails not only with poorly written dialogues but also with a weak plot. The relatively solid cast – Thomas Jane, John Travolta, Will Patton, Samantha Mathis, and Rebecca Romijn – is wasted. If the film had been in the hands of someone like Tony Scott or John Woo, it could have been a top-notch gritty action ride. As it stands, however, it is just an ordinary action movie, of which we can see hundreds if not thousands these days. (12/08/2004)