Gods going to sit this one out (The Punisher (DVD))

Member Name: triplecthegame

Product:	The Punisher (DVD)
Date:	19/07/05 (127 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great performances from Travolta and Jane

Disadvantages: a little forced at times

Ever since X-Men banked at the box office you may have noticed a huge resurgence in movies based on comic-book, heck just to name a few from my own personal DVD collection: Elektra, Daredevil, Bullet-proof Monk, Ghost World, Hell-Boy and of course since I’m writing about it: The Punisher. Being the comic book fan-boy that I am naturally I’d read at least a couple of editions of ‘The Punisher’ and whilst I thought it was good - it wasn’t the sort of title I’d add to my standing order with Travelling Man, but when they announced that a film was being made of it - well I was intrigued as this was surely a movie waiting to happen, wasn’t it?

* The Storyline *

Meet Frank Castle: a softly spoken FBI agent who’s recently decided to hang up his gun and badge and just relax with a bit of quiet time for his family and friends, on his last assignment he’d ended up in a bit of a show-down with a few criminals, one of them turned out to be the baby boy of local crime boss Howard Saint, as expected Saint isn’t happy (well which crime-boss who’s just had his son killed by a fed would be?) and decides to take revenge in the way only criminal’s know how - sends out some of his boys to kill Castle in one big murdering spree.

This all goes to plan for Saint except for one tiny hitch, although it seemed certain that Castle was dead - he was just badly hurt and now he’s out to get avenge the death of his wife, only son and everyone else in his family, but rather than going in guns blazing he’s out to do it with a bit of manipulation of Saint and his cronies.

* The Cast *

I remember the low-budget version that had Dolph Lungdren as Castle (Who I best remember as He-Man when I was a wee opinionator), and frankly the biggest part of that movie that sucked (it all did mind) was the casting - no-one seemed right and it just seemed to be a quick cash-in on Comic-steria in Hollywood, however director Jonathan Hensleigh has just about side-stepped this pot-hole in comic-moviemaking quite well, well just about.

As Castle Tom Jane does a stand-up job, the few books I’d picked up always had Castle as a dark character who kept himself to himself and only really inter-acted with other people when he needed to, and to be fair this has been portrayed on screen brilliantly by Jane, the character’s holed himself up in a run-down block of flats where occasionally his neighbours try to coax him out of his shell, but it never really works for them, however its not good enough for it to just be in the script - the actor has to portray a self-imposed loneliness and Jane does so - fantastically.

Of course it isn’t just Jane that make’s the film - in a superb appearance John Travolta appears as the attention to detail villain Saint. Once again its a fantastic performance as Travolta makes the role his own especially as he gets more and more paranoid when Castle starts to get closer to breaking down his crime syndicate and you can feel the ‘heat’ between the main Bad and Good Guy in the film kicking in.

But there are a couple of stinker characters in the movie and once again it’s one from both the Bad side and the Good side stinking it up, Good first:

The love interest - a character called Joan played by Rebecca Romjin-Stamos who lets be honest here, is awesome as Mystique in the X-Men movies, but in here she’s too staid - everything she does is predictable and it just doesn’t fit in with the rest of the film.

Then there’s the Bad:

Luckily its a really short scene but Kevin Nash as ‘The Russian’ basically sucks, maybe its because I remember him before he was useless in WWE and WCW (if you used to watch those and don’t remember him - think Diesel and later ‘Big Daddy Cool’ in the Outsiders), but the brawl scene he’s in although well choreographed, just seems extremely tacked onto the movie to fill a few minutes.

* The Soundtrack *

You surely know the standard for Comic-Book movies by now? Cue Nickelback, Drowning Pool and Finger Eleven getting a song in here or there, but there is one absolutely gorgeous song featured in the soundtrack - ‘Broken’ by Seether, I’d already heard it before the movie but then it got 1000 times better by the added guest vocals of Amy Lee (Of Evanescence and my fantasies fame - oh and also..... sadly dating Shaun Morgan, lead singer of Seether) - in the same way that My Immortal plucked at my heart-strings on the Daredevil soundtrack, Broken is heart-breakingly beautiful and fits the mood of the movie extremely well.

* Location and Action Scenes *

All the way through-out the movie (apart from the early family scene‘s), the movie has to be extremely dark and creepy to keep in tow with the story its trying to tell, yet at all time’s needs to be ready to spring into action for a fight-scene of some type, and to a degree it works, but again at times, it just seems a little too forced (the darkness that is) and it’s good its just not exactly great or something to jump up and down and scream about.

* Over-all *

It’s a no-brainer, but it’s a good no-brainer, if it wasn’t for the excellent performances from both Travolta and Jane then the movie’d be the sort of thing I’d probably avoid watching again - maybe even as far as selling my copy of its DVD but, because of their performance’s its a bargain to pick up (as its almost always in any DVD sale or multi-buy offer you see) and even if you’re not sure about buying it, I’d certainly recommend that you give it a rental on a bored night.

Summary: Worth a night's rental at least - of you like comic movies.