The Punisher

I really wanted to do this version of The Punisher for Marvel week. I don't want to take away from Dolph, but this one is better, and as I have not seen "War zone", so this is what's left. Good thing though. War zone made me mad. All the Thomas Jane drama, then he was no longer attached to it, then it seemed like it was thrown together and rushed to theaters. I thought Thomas Jane played Frank Castle really well, but at the same time, by 2004 when it was released we had already been given X-Men and X2, Spiderman, and Blade. With that said I wish The Punisher had been given a good budget. It still felt more on the cheesy 1990's style as opposed to the level of quality we had seen in the listed films above. I feel like The Punisher is one of the greatest Marvel characters ever. He is a vigilante. Unlike DC's Batman, Frank has no issue taking lives that deserve to be taken. When you think about it he seems to be one of the only comic book heroes with no conscience towards human life. In this attempt to reboot this particular franchise we see how Frank becomes The Punisher. Frank is a government agent working undercover when he is close to closing the case he has been on. When it's all over he thought he concealed his identity, but when the son of a major crime lord, Howard Saint (Travolta) is killed during the raid, Castle now has a price on his head. Reunited with his family, he is hunted down by Saint's men and no one survives. They kill his wife, son, parents....everyone except him. He manages to live only to become The Punisher. He will not stop until Saint and his organization is burned to the ground. He doesn't want them arrested, he wants them dead. He figures if he gets killed in the process it doesn't matter. He has already lost everything that matters. In his healing process he meets a few individuals that seem useless to him, but they prove themselves invaluable. The two of these new friends that you will recognize are played by Rebecca Romijn and Ben Foster. At one point Foster is tortured for info that would lead to Frank, but he gives them nothing even though several of his piercings were removed improperly and without his permission. I don't want to give anything away, but the way Frank plays Howard against his best friend Quinton is very clever. The Punisher is one of the all time great comic book characters and this films depicts him very well in my opinion. With that said, I would like to see Marvel take a lot of time and effort into a new Punisher series that is dark, gritty, and rated R for violence. 

NBM rates The Punisher - Awesome