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Strong and Moving!

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

The film almost fails at every level but to be fair the budget cut made the film a whole lot different from what was planned. Referencing various films from the 60s and 70s and the skull shirt etc all have gone to waste. Sure, it's better than 1989 version but still not even close to being good. The skull shirt didn't suit this film which plays out as a generic action film at all while it wasn't used in the 1989 version where it could have gone well with that film's tone.

This formula of guy was a cop.... guy watches family get burnt in a wooden house.... guy turns into superhero/vigilante/badass....goes all the way back to...."The Outlaw Jose Wales" and "Death Wish".And YOUR generation will have NO replacement for Clint, unless his kid can emulate daddy really well OR they CGI Clint like they did with Carrie Fisher last year.LATER

a great action film. for the high respect for the original source. for humor and for the use of cultural references. and, sure, for Thomas Jane who does a real good job. a film about values, justice and revenge. few memorable story - the huge Russian and the ignorant friends, the family moments and , sure, John Travolta in a role who reminds many others from his filmography but remains interesting. a film who respects its basic idea and this is the motif to give more than kicks and enormous confrontations, blood and explosions. but a coherent story, not always credible but for fans of cartoons and for the admirers of true fights could be enough. and, best detail, not only for this categories of public because the story real works . short, a good film. or just pure entertainment.

I like the idea behind this movie more then I like the movie itself. Director Jonathan Hensleigh had an idea to adapt the Punisher but in a serious (totally not comic book) way while incorporating stylistic elements from gritty action movies from the 60s and 70s. He approached actor Thomas Janes about playing the Punisher and at first he wasn't interested but when he read the script and saw what Hensleigh planned to do with the character in the film he signed on. The movie's production was also troubled; both budget and time to shoot were both cut in half meaning that Hensleigh had to cut out a lot of the more expensive action scenes, and on top of this Artisan Pictures was bought by Lionsgate during production. Despite all this Hensleigh delivered the movie on time to lukewarm reviews but modest box office success making $ 54,500,000 against a budget of $33,000,000. And yet…I'm not very fond of this movie, I like the idea and I admire the work but this movie is a bit flawed. Frank Castle is an undercover FBI agent and family man, he plans to do one last job and retire to a desk job. Unfortunately on his last job he accidentally kills the son of a powerful crook called Howard Saint (played by John Travolta) who gets his revenge by having Frank's entire family gunned down. Frank survives the incident and becomes The Punisher, a skull t-shirt wearing gun toting vigilante with no qualms about killing those who he deems deserving of punishment. This movie's plot is solid. An origin story combined with a revenge plot line similar to a 60s or 70s action movie. The action is well choreographed. And… I'm sorry but that's where the good runs out I'm afraid. So such a simple movie there are times it feels needlessly complicated especially involving a certain subplot where the punisher tricks Saint into killing his wife and best friend which was only there as a reference to a similar plot in a James Bond movie. This movie also has a tone problem because the punisher is a harsh concept but the movie doesn't go far enough with it meaning the harsher scenes feel out of place. This is not helped by a horribly out of place, even if funny, trio of comic reliefs and a weak villain. Yes while john Travolat is a good actor he is not in top form here. He simply isn't menacing enough as a villain which in a regular action movie would be one thing but in a punisher movie you need a villain the audience can buy or the punishment seems mean spirited and harsh. Overall this is a weak movie. The good stuff only manages to make this movie average while the bad knocks it down to below average. Thomas Janes gives a good performance and there are some enjoyable bits but the bad knocks it down. I don't recommend this but it's not awful.