Punisher: War Zone
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By ROGER MOORE / The Orlando Sentinel
With “Punisher: War Zone,” Thomas Jane, the actor with two first names and little acting talent, looks like the smartest guy in the room. He didn’t return to the vigilante film series after making one awful movie four years ago.
To reboot the DOA “Punisher” comic-book-to-film franchise, Marvel found the only actor on Earth to make Jane look charismatic. Ray Stevenson, the new Punisher, an ex-Special Forces instructor who slaughters bad guys to avenge the murder of his family, is Irish and isn’t allowed to speak a word for the first 30 minutes of “War Zone.” That speaks volumes.
This Punisher stabs, blows heads off, impales and shoots maybe 244 or so villain-victims. Judge, jury and executioner with extreme prejudice, he locks and loads and locks and loads again. He tosses a bad guy into a glass recycling machine. Love that squishy, slice-and-dice sound effect? Get used to it. Bodily fluids and the sounds they generate are a big part of this gory and wholly unsatisfying slasher film.
1 star
Director: Lexi Alexander
Stars: Ray Stevenson, Dominic West
Rated: R (for pervasive strong brutal violence, language and some drug use)
Running Time: 1 hour, 40 minutes
The Reel Story: Stevenson steps into the role as the ruthless vigilante-hero of this comic book adaptation, going after mob boss Dominic West in this badly made, violent picture.
Six ways this 'Punisher' just might be good
By MICAH MERTES / GZO
On the face of things, the new-to-theaters "Punisher: War Zone" might seem like just another humdrum, late-in-the-year comic book movie. But it has the potential to do something no one thought possible: Be a good Punisher movie.
The Punisher's comic-book-to-big-screen transition has been a bumpy ride, even more so than that of another troubled Marvel character, the Hulk.
"War Zone' is the third try at tackling the sordid story of Frank Castle, an ordinary guy who goes vigilante after mobsters kill his family. For fans yearning for a solid cinematic adaptation, i'’s been a long wait - nearly two decades.
Here are six reasons this Punisher movie might not be so punishing.
1. No Dolph Lundgren: The horrid 1989 Punisher adaptation (the first) featured Lundgren, not exactly the most charismatic man in Hollywood, as our titular man on fire. You cast Lundgren as the guy Rocky fights, not as your antihero.
2. Ultraviolence: The red-band trailer for this flick shows a staggering amount of exploding heads, caved-in faces and impaled torsos. "War Zone" looks gross, gratuitous and disturbed, which could earn it the respect of fanboys.
3. Ray Stevenson: The rugged lug of an actor was excellent on HBO's "Rome," and he's a good choice to play Frank Castle. He's less pretty than Thomas Jane (who played Castle in the 2004 "Punisher") but more evolved than Lundgren.
4. No John Travolta: Vinnie Barbarino played the tantrum-throwing villain, the horribly disfigured Jigsaw, in the 2004 go-round. And it was embarrassing just to watch him.
5. Dominic West: The troubled McNulty of HBO's "The Wire" is a bizarre choice to play Jigsaw this time around. And a little bit of strange does a movie good.
6. Lexi Alexander: The movie's director is a former kickboxing and martial arts champ-turned-filmmaker. Her first feature, "Green Street Hooligans," was bursting with machismo and brute violence, exactly what "War Zone" needs to be any good.
Please, please, please, let this be good.
Six years have passed and Punisher Frank Castle’s been killing and killing, and yet New York’s supply of villains and bodily fluids hasn’t run dry. The villains are easy to find. They all wear black.
Frank falls afoul of an F.B.I. undercover operation, kills an agent and is hunted by a fellow Fed (Colin Salmon) even as he tries to protect the dead agent’s widow and little girl and assassinate all the “real” bad guys.
The bloodbath in the opening reel left Billy the Generic Italian Mobster sliced up so badly he’s given himself a nickname — “Jigsaw.” (Yeah, it’s taken, but he was sure “Saw IV” would be the last one, too.) Dominic West of “300” does serious career damage as Jigsaw, slinging the worst “badda bing-badda boom” Jersey-Mafia accent this side of Hugh Grant. Mercifully, his face is unrecognizable in the latter scenes of this badda-bomb.
The Punisher encases himself in armor and clambers through the subway on the way to each showdown. He swaps Bible verses with a priest.
“God be with you, Frank.”
“Sometimes I’d like to get my hands on God,” Frank hisses back, because that’s what heroes hiss in really bad comic-book adaptations.
The laugh-out-loud stuff may not be sheer ineptitude, but I wouldn’t stake my life on it. Uwe Boll, the Orson Welles of Awful Movies, at long last has a challenger. By coincidence, “War Zone’s” Lexi Alexander is also German-born. But the martial artist/stunt choreographer who thought she’d landed her big Hollywood break with this should have checked with the smartest guy in the room.
If Thomas Jane knew better, shouldn’t she?
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