When "The Punisher" first hit video racks in 1989, I was a rabid teenage comic book collector, and at the time "The Punisher" was one of my favorite Marvel titles. I had a huge collection of "Punisher" comics and never missed an issue, so needless to say, I was quite stoked to finally see Frank Castle hit the big screen (or I suppose I should say "small screen"). Unfortunately, on my first viewing of "The Punisher" I absolutely HATED it. I was so infuriated at how the producers played fast-and-loose with the character's back story and mythology that I actually wrote a letter to Marvel listing off my complaints about the inaccuracies in the film ("Why wasn't Frank wearing the Skull Emblem? Why was he living in the sewers like a damned Mutant Ninja Turtle? He's not an ex-cop, he's an ex-Marine! Where was the War Wagon? Where was Microchip?" etc., etc...)... what can I say, I was young, and Hell hath no fury like an Enraged Geek.
Twenty years have gone by, I'm now a retired Comic Book Geek (I sold off the bulk of my collection, including my "Punisher" books, in the late '90s), and one day I came across Dolph's "Punisher" in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. I had only vague memories of the film by this point so I figured "Ehhh, what the hell." Now that enough time has passed that I can separate this film from the original source material (I'm still convinced that when New World Pictures obtained the "Punisher" license, they didn't bother to read any of the comics -- they just plugged the characters' names into a generic action movie script they already had laying around in a drawer somewhere), I actually enjoyed "The Punisher" a lot more than I did back in the day. It's still "The Punisher" in name only, and the lack of attention to detail still bugged me a little, but on its own merits, "The Punisher" was a pretty decent B-grade action movie. If carnage is your thing, this flick will definitely satisfy in spades. There are crazy gun battles seemingly every two minutes (using approximately 50,000 shell casings per frame of film), martial arts smackdowns with ninjas, a surprising amount of gore, and decent stuntwork for what was obviously a low budget film. I've never been a big fan of Dolph Lundgren but I have to admit he captured the haunted, tortured look in Frank Castle's eyes and he did present a hell of an imposing figure, stalking the underworld in black leather biker gear and carrying Big F'n Guns. The storyline is silly at best (in a nutshell, Frank's war against the Mafia is interrupted by the arrival of a new gang from the Japanese Yakuza who wish to muscle in on the territory, leading Frank into an uneasy truce with his former targets in order to eliminate their common enemy) but the actors play their roles well (particularly the Japanese actress who portrayed the insane Yakuza head Lady Tanaka and the ever-reliable Louis Gossett Jr., adding yet another Angry Cop role to his resume as Castle's former police partner) and the amount of pyrotechnics thrown on screen will ensure the viewer never gets bored.
I still have not seen either of the two recent "Punisher" films that supposedly are more faithful to the character's comic book origins, but I'll probably get to them one of these days. As of right now, this early draft has shot up a few notches in my estimation and I'd say it would make a decent rental/purchase for the action junkies out there. Ignore the ramblings of the Comic Book Geeks who hate this movie. I should know, I used to be one of them.
Twenty years have gone by, I'm now a retired Comic Book Geek (I sold off the bulk of my collection, including my "Punisher" books, in the late '90s), and one day I came across Dolph's "Punisher" in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart. I had only vague memories of the film by this point so I figured "Ehhh, what the hell." Now that enough time has passed that I can separate this film from the original source material (I'm still convinced that when New World Pictures obtained the "Punisher" license, they didn't bother to read any of the comics -- they just plugged the characters' names into a generic action movie script they already had laying around in a drawer somewhere), I actually enjoyed "The Punisher" a lot more than I did back in the day. It's still "The Punisher" in name only, and the lack of attention to detail still bugged me a little, but on its own merits, "The Punisher" was a pretty decent B-grade action movie. If carnage is your thing, this flick will definitely satisfy in spades. There are crazy gun battles seemingly every two minutes (using approximately 50,000 shell casings per frame of film), martial arts smackdowns with ninjas, a surprising amount of gore, and decent stuntwork for what was obviously a low budget film. I've never been a big fan of Dolph Lundgren but I have to admit he captured the haunted, tortured look in Frank Castle's eyes and he did present a hell of an imposing figure, stalking the underworld in black leather biker gear and carrying Big F'n Guns. The storyline is silly at best (in a nutshell, Frank's war against the Mafia is interrupted by the arrival of a new gang from the Japanese Yakuza who wish to muscle in on the territory, leading Frank into an uneasy truce with his former targets in order to eliminate their common enemy) but the actors play their roles well (particularly the Japanese actress who portrayed the insane Yakuza head Lady Tanaka and the ever-reliable Louis Gossett Jr., adding yet another Angry Cop role to his resume as Castle's former police partner) and the amount of pyrotechnics thrown on screen will ensure the viewer never gets bored.
I still have not seen either of the two recent "Punisher" films that supposedly are more faithful to the character's comic book origins, but I'll probably get to them one of these days. As of right now, this early draft has shot up a few notches in my estimation and I'd say it would make a decent rental/purchase for the action junkies out there. Ignore the ramblings of the Comic Book Geeks who hate this movie. I should know, I used to be one of them.