The Punisher (2004) SPOILERS
 

I felt this could use it's own thread since I have a lot (kinda) to say about it.

I'm a fan of the original starring Dolph Lundgren so I was pretty skeptical when I saw what actor they were using for this. He looked too average joe normal unintimidating in the original promo pics. I never got around to seeing it until last night.

I was pleasantly surprised with the first section (up until he returns to his family's home after recovering). The only problem I had with this first third(?) of the movie was that they tried to do some kind of surprise twist where he was killed and then shockingly sat up in the body bag, but since we knew the actor it was totally useless.

Ok now for the middle part. I thought this just plain sucked balls. Apparenly some of the elements in this section of the movie are based on the Marvel Knights comics which are supposed to be good, but I'm going to disregard that fact. The Punisher is supposed to be this tormented hollow shell of a man stalking in the night, striking fear into people (Batman style) and blowing the shit out of anyone he decides to. Instead, he rents an apartment, holds a press conference in broad daylight, and makes some new friends. He doesn't appear to be tormented at all. He walks around in the daylight and eats in a cafe. The two retarded assasins they send after him (apparently based on the comics) are ridiculous and just plain lame. The little games and tricks Punisher pulls over the course of a few weeks is ridiculous. He comes face to face with many of the people who slaughtered his entire family and tried to blow him up, and he just gives them a little wink like he has some kind of crafty tricks up his sleeve. What he should be doing is blowing the shit out of them. Then he starts crying when his new friend tries to stitch up a wound, the real Punisher (Dolph) cauterized his own bullet holes himself with a hot knife for fuck's sake! He hid in the sewers and created a sense of oh shit the punisher is lurking in the city, he could kill us at any moment, etc. This new guy is just walking around in the daylight acting like a tool. I could go on but this paragraph isn't structured well and I've gotten my point across.

Third part of the movie: This part was alright, but the fact that it took place in one small club and he took out most of the badguys in 2 seconds with a bomb, this was lame. Then he walks into the place and proceeds to get shot up a number of times by a few henchmen turds instead of just blowing them away in 2 seconds. He somehow got his hands on a buttload of explosives and orchestrated his huge fancy ultimate revenge by having them blow up instead of using the more satisfying method of just taking his massive guns and blowing these guys away. These are the guys that killed everyone he loves and took his life away. And he's playing silly games with them. Setting up the bombs under certain cars in the lot so that they blew up into the skull logo was kinda cool and also pretty retarded. This third part of the movie was pretty cool compared to the middle but it still was sucky.

Then the final ending where he leaves his new pals, that was sappy and lame.

I don't know what else to say, but this movie had a huge budget, all kinds of potential, and then the low budget original from 89 totally whupped its ass (besides having a somewhat dorky storyline with the kids and the bus). But the original totally got Frank Castle down as this pained creature of vengeance, and in this movie he was just some dork walking around.

It sucked!

Know what I'm sayin?!??

reading your analysis makes my head hurt

That's cause either the movie sucked or my article was not well written. Probably both. But I was trying to express myself, sorry that it wasn't good but I know it got across what I was trying to say.

Also, you people should get the original, its like $5 now and the picture quality is really good.

saying that the 2004 version of Frank Castle looked like a dork is the same as saying that you look like a superhero

You're crazy. Maybe you just aren't familiar with Dolph's version. Another thing, the voice. Dolph had the dead man's hollow shell voice, this guy had an average fellow voice. Dolph lost everything and lurked in the sewers. This guy goes out, rents an apartment, and makes some friends. Stupid! I downloaded the comics, so I'm gonna see if the comics are good and they somehow went wrong with the movie.

i saw this (against my will, my 9 year old cousin told me it was the best movie ever) a couple weeks ago. i thought it was crap.

Did anyone expect this movie to be good?

no

It had potential, the guy was pretty buff, way more than I had expected. The actor could have pulled it off. But it sucked too much. And then on these Marvel movies they always have that old dude Avi Arad spouting on and on about their comics, and then he says all this shit about the character and then in the movie they do the opposite.

But I always enjoy the featurettes where they give you the back-ground on the character and interview the writers and artists, it got me interested in Punisher as a character and I'm gonna look into his comics.

I didn't expect it to be good but I also didn't expect it to be stupid either. It had some cool elements but all of the things I listed made it suck.

The funniest part is at the end where Travolta goes "You killed my son" and then you hear "NOOOO" POW!!! And then Frank goes something like "Both of em." :D

w3rd

I just read the first issue of Marvel Knights Punisher, it was so badass, he just blew everyone away, no stupid little games. The movie was kinda based on this one issue but the totally fucked it up. This guy was no nonsense just killing everyone. It ruled!

awesome i hope to see a review of Return of the King next

I didn't have a problem with that movie, it was cool.

I never trust ginger people.