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Wednesday, September 15, 2004

The Punisher: My Take

No real spoilers here...

Watched The Punisher the other day on DVD.

It was okay, but not great or even very good. Just okay.

My issue with the movie is that it was a watered down Hollywood-ization replete with the romantic subplot and goofy comedic supporting characters.

Castle himself was somewhat bland and I never got the "gritty engine of destruction" that the Punisher should be. The movie told us that he was an expert in arms, combat, etc, but they never showed it... his character was more of a punching bag than anything else. He wasn't as mentally tough as I thought the Punisher should be.

I didn't like the drinking in the film. I thought that was untrue to who the Punisher would be. The "real" Punisher probably would only drink as a cover and never let himself lose mental focus by drinking to excess to "escape."

The use of weaponry was pedestrian and could have been a lot more imaginative. The only cool thing was the car with the roll down metal windows, but they didn't even use that to full effect.

In all, it was a decent 2004 take on Deathwish, but the film ignored various key character traits that make the Punisher unique.

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