Punisher: War Zone (2008)

How sad is this?

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

A Masterpiece!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Oh boy, Punisher Warzone is a movie that I enjoy but have some major problems with. One thing that this movie got right was casting Ray Stevenson as Frank Castle/The Punisher, who did a tremendous job and was perfect for this role, even looking like The Punisher. Colin Salmon was also good as an FBI agent that was at odds with Frank Castle, Julie Benz looks great and performed well and I really liked Wayne Knight's portrayal of the Micro character. All of the scenes with Ray Stevenson are really intense and the film is packed with extreme, over the top gory violence and brutal action. However, the film is too much in a comic book style and much of this stuff is too silly to supplement the dark and gritty subject matter/source material. A lot of the dialouge is just flat out dumb and the villains of this film are super lame and cartoonish. Both of the actors that play Jigsaw and "Loony Bin Jim" stink it up big time. They are even worst than John Travolta in the Thomas Jane Punisher film and to say that speaks volumes on the level of terrible they are in this movie. Besides the occasional levity from the Micro character, I don't see much humor belonging in this film and there are too many goofy moments that don't serve the story and are not funny. Frank Castle/The Punisher is a tragic, damaged and dark figure and Ray Stevenson portrayed him perfectly. For some, this will play as great campy entertainment. Speaking for myself, this movie had a lot of potential for greatness if this was taken more seriously. Even so, Ray Stevenson's performance alone is worth the price of admission and has a lot of good action.

This film is not even close to a good film but it is just so damn funny it's amazing.

Many superheros from comic books have made transitions to the big screen, some turning out to be more successful than others. Out of all the superheroes in the comic book universe, it seems that Fantastic Four and the Punisher have endured the most abuse in the cinematic world. The discussion for today is focusing on the latter. Following two unpolished adaptations of the titular gun-totting vigilante, director Lexi Alexander attempts to yet another reboot of the hero with this devastating violent hard-R actioner, hopefully to give the hero the cinematic adaptation he truly deserves. Sadly, this dreary excuse of an action flick only continues the sour trend of failed attempts on bringing the titular figure to life. What transpires to the screen here is a gloomy gun-blazing action vehicle that buries its the beauty of the titular action hero in paper-thin plot stitched together by an excruciating amount of graphic violence. Following the plot of the previous movie, this film follows Frank Castle a.k.a The Punisher (played by Ray Stevenson), a gun-wielding vigilante who continues his path for vengeance against the Russoti family who were responsible for the death of his wife and child. After an attempted slaying of the mobster Billy Russoti (played by Dominic West) who survives his attack, left with a horribly stitched face, and adopts the name Jigsaw; Castle comes to face-to-face with Billy's brother Loony Bin Jim (played by Doug Hutchinson).Taking from the pages of the Marvel comics, this movie adopts the signature violent nature of the titular vigilante. When it comes showcasing the grueling brutality of the source material, this film pulls absolutely no punches. But happens when the extreme violence becomes the driving force of an already thin plot? What results is a dispiriting mess of the actioner that falls shallow of the soul of the comic-book-based hero. Director Lexi Alexander fails to capture the absorbing spirit of the gun-blazing hero in a way that accounts to an entertaining ride, and instead settles of a gloomy, self- serious vehicle. Even Christopher Nolan's 'The Dark Knight' encountered a pinch of levity in its grim atmosphere. The main center of the story is The Punisher who's executed with a performance by HBO star Ray Stevenson that is not terrible, but the character itself is so shallow of humanity and charisma, it is difficult to the root for their character in the midst of the carnage. The antagonist Jigsaw isn't given much flair each other, and suffers from a portrayal that feels more gratuitous than genuine. And the paper-thin plot certainly does do much justice. The best thing Alexander has to offer her is the nicely- edited action scenes which showcase The Punisher mowing down the bad guys in an loud, bombastic splatter galore. The action fortunately starts off fun, but it is not long of the brutality of the action grows numbing. It appears that Lexi Alexander tries so hard to recount the glory days of splatter-laden action flicks from the 80s and 90s. Sadly, that is just a simple endeavor gone wrong. The Punisher: War Zone is a dour vigilante action vehicle that fails to rise up above a dreary actioner chewed up by a soulless script and an unpolished portrayal of the titular hero. If there is anything that this film succeeds on aside from pulse-pounding action, it is showing slight improvement upon the previous entry starring Thomas Jane, which really isn't say a whole lot.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time writing a review. I'll just say this movie was under rated and is exactly how a punisher movie should have been done. Also the guy they casted for punisher was way better then the other Frank castles.Too bad it didn't make enough at the box office to help the star reprise his role as Frank castle. The minimum review though needs to be at least 10 lines. so I will just also mention that the main bad guy also was exactly how to add characters to the street level marvel hero's. I'm tired of having the main bad guy being some mafia, etc.I definitely Recommend this movie to anyone who is a fan of marvel or punisher.