"your punishment - watch the DVD"
The Punisher
Dir. Jonathan Hensleigh
Reviewed by Matt Adcock
“God's going to sit this one out” says Frank Castle aka The Punisher and to be honest I don’t blame God for doing that… The Punisher is a kick ass Marvel comic book hero who has been unlucky twice now in his cinematic turns. First there was the Dolph Lundgren (last seen in 2004’s ‘Fat Slags’ - the movie, as a gym instructor) version back in 1989. That film’s claim to fame was that 91 people got killed individually on screen, not including those who died en masse in explosions, etc… I’m not sure if any of those were reflections of audience members but safe to say that it was no classic (although now I have a strange desire to watch it again after seeing this new version).
As Frank himself says: “Those who do evil to others - the killers, the rapists, psychos, sadists - you will come to know me well…”– I guess they’re the type of people who will get this on DVD?
Still, The Punisher isn’t the worst action film I’ve ever seen but the tone jumps about horribly so that you can never be entirely sure whether to laugh or cry. Just for the record, The Punisher's arsenal includes: two modified Colt M1911 pistols, a Glock 18 with extended magazine and folding buttstock, a Colt Commando with attached M203 Grenade Launcher, a Colt Python revolver, a spring-loaded knife and a Claymore anti-personnel mine – but somehow it still doesn’t feel like he’s mean enough…
Stand out scenes were, um, damn there must have been some but all I can remember is some fat blonde Russian hitman having a slapstick slapdown (whilst looking a little bit like a blimped out Dolph Lundgren), the character called 'Spacker Dave' was played by Ben 'was cool in Hostage' Foster, oh and John Travolta who did his patented ‘arch villain’ bit. More about John Travolta soon as I got to meet him the other week at the UK Press Launch of Be Cool so check back for that.
Alas Frank Castle really is dead.
Call me The Punisher and please give me a better plot in the sequel…
Darkmatt Rating: öö (punishment for the viewer)
2 comments:
I stumbled across your blog on Blog Explosion and I am very impressed! Very interesting stuff and I loved the interview you have posted with Ricky Gervais (only became familiar with him recently since I'm American and he's already one of my favorites)! Keep up the great work!
hey just popped in
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