Yeah !!! Best punisher yet.Finally the right actor as punisher !!
Added 10/4/2009
Wow fantastic movie.This is like punisher is in the comics.I hope they make punisher 3 soon with
this new awesome actor.
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Punisher: War Zone, 800th review!
Added 9/18/2009
I saw the preview for this movie when it first came out and shrugged it off. I watched a review from a guy saying how good this film was and since I enjoy his work I checked it out. I've seen the two previous Punisher films and I did like the Dolph Lundgren version, which is a shocking statement in itself, better then the newer version with Thomas Jane. This one is probably the best film out of the three.
The film is straight up action from beginning to end. I've heard people say the acting sucked, there was little action (well from one guy), and the story was non-existent. It's a friggin action movie who the hell cares about acting? The main bad guys, Looney Bin Jim and Jigsaw did a good performance. There is a story to the film but I guess some people missed it. The action is plentiful and somewhat gory. I highly enjoyed this movie and I barely expect anything from it. Check this out if you want a mindless action film.
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sorry i like this movie
Added 8/20/2009
Let me start by saying I understand this movie/character is not for every one. he doesn't fly,turn in to a 10 foot green monster, have a cool super suit, or shoot webs out of his hands. The Punisher is a walking death machine. He doesn't do this to save the world. It's his personal war with the underworld that killed his family. I feel this movie captures that. It's not a great movie. It won't make you cry or die laughing but it does kick ass.
This is a fun ultra violent film that will entertain if you don't take it to seriously. I highly recommend it.
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Easily the worst of the Punisher films
Added 8/9/2009
Spoilers Ahead!
The first thing you need to understand about this movie is that it has no plot. What you get here is explosions, extreme violence, bad language and rip-offs from Batman the movie and The Dark Knight. The Punisher does nothing but kill criminals all movie long, stopping only for a moment to reflect upon his accidental murder of an undercover cop, whose family gets kidnapped only because the Punisher kills criminals all movie long. He has to save them, because, you know, he's their protector now. Out of guilt, of course.
It's true that this Punisher is the most violent; however, that violence is highly cartoonish. This isn't Goodfellas violent, like it should be, but rather Watchmen alley scene violent. Shotgun blasts to the head, cause complete disintegration and there's a scene where the Punisher punches someone in the face and the guy's face implodes. Take in mind that the Punisher is just a powerless human who's snapped and you have to ask exactly who on this planet can do something like that?
It's been said that a hero is only as good as his villain and this is where the Punisher commits yet another comic book movie crime. Jiggsaw is a rip-off of Jack Nickelson's Joker, albeit slightly toned down and a lot less charismatically insane. It's the absolute worst portrayal of an Italian mob boss I've ever seen in a live-action movie. It's Krang-level antics from the original TMNT cartoons here. In fact, Jiggsaw's brother is ten-times better as a character than he is. Quite impressive, actually.
Speaking of rip-offs, some of the music in this movie seems to have been siphoned off from The Dark Knight. On first introduction of the Punisher, you can clearly hear similar use of string instruments rubbing at a fast pace as it was in The Dark Knight. It only heightens the hilarity of it, when we see how the Punisher dispatches an entire table of mob members. It is easily the silliest scene in the movie and only makes the Punisher look ever more like a cartoon character that doesn't know what he's doing. Not only does he light a flare, after shutting off the power--what exactly was the point of shutting off the lights, if you're going to light a flare?--but he proceeds to kill everyone at the table at a slow enough pace that you would think someone would have pulled a gun and shot him down. Worst of all, he goes on to hang upside down from a chandelier in a room full of gun-toting criminals in what has got to be the most ridiculous thing I've seen since Ghost Rider. A true telling of this scene would have had the Punisher using knight-vision goggles as he simply shot-up the entire unlit room.
With all that said, it's quite clear that the makers of this movie had little faith in the source material, as once again a character's costume is changed for no good reason. That box-art is highly deceptive. Why, exactly, is that cool skull on the Punisher's chest nigh-invisible? It's there for a reason, yet the filmakers do their best to hide it without actually removing it altogether. The movie is already shockingly silly. Why not drive it home with an authentic costume?
The acting is quite terrible. You'd think someone could get cop personalities right after the endless amount of cop dramas filling prime time television these days, but they miss the boat even with this. This is a bootleg version of the remake to Starsky & Hutch. In fact, it's Last Action Hero all over again.
The Punisher himself is not without fault either. There's a scene where he's fighting an FBI agent and the agent is giving him competition. Frank Castle, the Punisher; a war veteran, master of martial arts, stealth tactics, guerilla warfare, an expert in a wide variety of weapons and an ex special ops operative is having trouble with an FBI agent. You figure that one out. He's not particularly terrible, but the actor's body language is just wrong in certain places. This is a hardened, war vet who's lost everything. He should be a mixture of Sarah Connor, Jason Bourne, and Dirty Harry with a stoic personality, bordering on insanity if not insane altogether. Dolph Lundren's Punisher was a guy I would genuinely not feel comfortable being in the same room with. This Punisher is actually embraced by a little girl that only met him ONCE! Mind you, this is the little girl whose daddy was accidentally killed by the Punisher.
As for the ending, it's totally unforgivable. Jiggsaw virtually committed suicide. I can't see any leader of so many being that stupid. Any villain that allows the Punisher to continue holding a gun under any condition is a fool. Period.
Get ready to turn your brain to the negative setting and take some comfort in knowing it's at least violent and gritty as frak.
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BEST COMIC/FILM ADAPTION EVER! MUST SEE....
Added 8/5/2009
awesum...
mindblowing! congrats must be given to all involved - this is as much a benchmark for comic film as tim burtons' Batman - so long ago...
i have not been so captivated and engrossed in a film/comic since 300.
truely brilliant stuff. i recommend it to all PUNISHER enthusiasts - at last a true representation with NOHOLDSBARRED brutal violence! YAAAHHHH!
Ray Stevenson is 120% of every character he plays - faithful and fullfrontal in strength and conviction. the FX are awesum, make up and bullets, all the background actors die with sincerity and homage to the comic reality they are within.... great applause... makes Dark Knight look like chewing gum!
well done to everyone involved in this film....
a MUST HAVE for the PUNISHER fan....... MUST HAVE.
BTW any moron who states this comic/film adaption is less than 4 stars is NOT a PUNISHER fan and has critiqued a film they obviously have NO COMPREHENSION of or the full background story and comic reality of, so why even write an opinion on it - they can suck on the muzzle of an M-18...........
...ZABOOOM!
end.
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Ray Stevenson as Punisher, Colin Salmon as Eye Candy
Added 10/15/2009
Movies like this are why people should read reviews before purchasing. It should have been no surprise about the violence if you were familiar with the graphic novels. I don't normally go for such violent and gory films, but I like watching Stevenson and Salmon so I gave it a chance. At least it's not brainless, hence my 4-star rating. There a plot and a purpose to this film. And, the ending is okay. Not recommended for the faint of heart.
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For Punisher Fans Only...
Added 8/2/2009
My 4-star rating of Punisher: War Zone is based soley on Ray Stevenson as The Punisher and the faithfulness to the source material where the character is concerned. However over-the-top the action sequences with the Punisher may seem to be, even to the knowledgable Punisher fan, I thought were great. I don't think anyone will mistake Lexi Alexander for a great director, but she managed to capture the "spirit" of the character. Unfortunately, there is more bad about this film than good.
The Good: Ray Stevenson as The Punisher. I thought everything about the Punisher's look, his actions and prowess was spot on. The overall story was pretty straightforward and a good jumping off point. Using an established villain (Jigsaw, played by Dominic West) from the comic book was good. The Punisher's origin was smartly incorporated in a brief flashback scene. Various scenes throughout the movie (with the police supporting characters) and his comic book sidekick, Microchip (called Micro in the movie, played by Wayne Knight) quickly establish how the Punisher is able to operate. I find that too often, movies get bogged down by being a half origin movie and that takes away from the movie itself. Not the case in War Zone. We know everything we need to know about The Punisher through various scenes.
The Bad. I found the basic story tripped up by the clumsy attempt to add depth where depth was not needed. The Punisher works best as a "black and white" character. Having the Punisher go through an internal struggle just didn't work and really slowed the movie down. Having the Punisher walk or run around the streets fully armed is just plain silly and lazy writing. It's a minor detail, but it really detracts from the "credibility" of the character and the world in which he lives. The acting of the supporting cast was adequate, but the stupidity of the Lexi Alexander created Loony Bin Jim character was cringe-worthy. LBJ played by Doug Hutchison was embarrassingly bad, not to mention absurd. How this pipsqueak could last 5 seconds in a fight with the Punisher, not to mention survive being used as human sledge hammer by the Punisher is beyond me. Joe Pesci proved time and again that you don't need to be physically imposing to be menacing, Hutchison has a long way to go. Alexander obviously thought LBJ was a great character, so much so that the final showdown, typically between "hero and villain", in this case Punisher and Jigsaw turned out to be more Punisher vs Loony Bin. There was a line about The Punisher being in the priesthood. Probably another lame Alexander addition which didn't work (and not part of the source material that I'm familiar with) but allowed them to film a church scene which seems all too common in bad movies and served as another clumsy attempt get into the head of the Punisher. If expanding or adding depth to the Punisher's character was what Alexander wanted, she should have went for a Ray Stevenson voiceover. This would have given the lead character more "screen time" instead we got bogged down with too many scenes with the supporting cast. If she bothered to research the character beyond the comic books the look of the movie is based on, she would've seen that the voiceover device is often used---at least in early Punisher comic books, called his "War Journal".
I have to believe that in a more talented and experienced director's hands, War Zone could've been one of the best comic book movies ever made. After all, half the work was done with Ray Stevenson in the lead. If you're a Punisher fan, War Zone faithfully captures the spirit of the character and then some, it's a must-see or must-own. Otherwise, don't bother because it falls short in almost every other respect from a film making standpoint that it's completely understandable why the public at large stayed away.
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Not So Happy Punisher Super Fan
Added 7/9/2009
I'm a big fan of the Punisher. He is easily my fav comic book character. And finally they got a movie of his right. The Dolph Lundgren movie had some good points but overall was a humorous joke. The Thomas Jane movie was a great drama/action movie. The only problem was it wasn't about the Punisher! (At least not the Punisher I know and have always seen for 16 years)
Kudos to Lexi Alexander for finally getting it right. She said they were sticking to the source and they largely did. However there were a slew of problems with the movie and ultimately her inexperienced directing. The script was kind of running all over the place. It had strong elements but didn't tie them together well. On the directing side the movie was chopped up and edited together like crazy. Scenes were not fluid and cut up all the time. This can be further witnessed in "the making of". I don't think it was bad actors, in fact I've seen many of those actors in their other works and they did just fine. I think the actors queues were off and the script at times was hard to pull off with very odd dialog and scenes that were not being directed well. The movie was not cut well in the end and this showed several times when it showed the actors standing there right after they were given their queue to go ahead and they weren't even in character yet.
Silly things in the film like Frank walking through all of New York in public with his full load out was just ridiculous. A 10 second scene showing him stow his gear into a duffel would have taken care of that. A heavily armed gunman walking through a subway multiples times at night just doesn't work. The constant pulling of multiple pistols, sheathing of said pistols, reloading pistols and my favorite, after he shoots up the mafia in the beginning, he sheaths all his weapons and gets ready to walk out then another guy assaults him. Frank, in enemy territory not holding a weapon? The chandelier seen visually looked cool but was also silly. The "heat seeking grenade" that blew up a guy in mid air was a bad joke. Lexi can definitely direct hand to hand combat action and she did so very well. For gun play, she hasn't got a clue and she is no John Woo. Even though she got the visuals down, everything else kind of hit and missed. I think a more experienced director with smarter spending in budget and a cleaner script that wasn't ripped piecemeal from the comics would have done a lot better. And Frank was in seminary? Somebody shoot me.
A good example of low budget, solid action and good directing would be Leon, The Professional. (made for 16 million in 94')
The reason I give this 4 out of 5 stars is because again, I'm a huge Punisher fan. However, if I were to rate this DVD subjectively I would have given it 1 out of 5 stars. I really wanted to support the movie and buy it so I bought the two disc special edition. Not good.
1. As several other mentioned the package is made from a earth friendly recyclable whatever. It flexes and bends, has cut out material underneath the outer paper. Where you press to release the dvd, it flexes so much it doesn't work! You just have to pry it off.
2. There are literally 7 movie previews that you have to fast forward by just to get to the movie. Not what I'd expect for a special edition.
3. When I tried to play the movie in xp64's Windows Media Player, it said it couldn't due to copyright issues. When I tried to get the digital version to mount of my Vista 32 laptop, it couldn't even recognize the DVD. I finally got the movie to play in Media Player Classic.
4. The digital version with it's heavy copyright protection from computer to computer is a bad joke.
5. The extra content IE the making of is VERY short and only half of it is good. It was cool watching the actors talk about he movie. The guns of the punisher was just sad. Hardly any up to date guns or exotic weapons. No fun footage of target practice, nothing. I did like the Training bit though. It was substantial and showed some fun footage. The same credits after every special got old. Fast forward time.
Unless Lions Gate makes another Punisher movie, I will never buy one of their productions again. Their production, materials, special digital content etc were lame, buggy and cheap at best.
If you're a punisher fan, buy the two disc. The extra content is BARELY worth it.
If you're an action fan it is definitely worth a watch.
If you're neither, steer clear.
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