Dr. Venkman Reviews: PUNISHER: WAR ZONE

by Joey Paur



Whether you like it or hate it, there is one thing I think everyone will agree on, and that is this movie is a true blue, ball breaking, action flick of death! Not since ‘Robocop' and ‘Last Man Standing' have I seen so much senseless bloody violence. I couldn't help but laugh at the ridiculous amount of violence and the little things they did to make it a little extra fun for the audience.



This Punisher film and the Thomas Jane Punisher are two completely different movies. They each have their own thing and have their certain charms, but I enjoyed this new one a hell of a lot more. War Zone is 100% a comic book movie. They did not ground it in reality at all. They took it to the over the top extreme like the comic book is.

The dialogue is also pretty much straight from the comic book, so it isn't your academy award nominated screenplay. But, the cheesy ridiculous dialogue works for what this movie is supposed to be, a live action comic book.



As for the acting in the film, it was pretty stale and very campy. But again for the style of the movie it just seemed to fit in just fine. Ray Stevenson is a bad ass in the film. I thought he made a great Punisher. Dominic West as Jigsaw was fun to watch, at the same time laughable because he was so outlandish. Dash Mihok as Martin Soap was the comic relief and he had some of the tackiest lines. Then when Doug Hutchison showed up as Looney Bin Jim I didn't know how to feel. Here is a guy that played the dweeby little asshole Percy in ‘The Green Mile' now playing a feared crazy tough guy. He is usually pretty good in the films he does, but in this he was unreasonably bizarre. His character was one I wanted to like, but damn, I was embarrassed for him as an actor.



There were also a few holes in the film, but there was one major plot hole that propelled the movie forward. At the beginning of the film Frank Castle kills an undercover FBI agent, the think is no one sees him do it and he does it in a warehouse full of a bunch of other bad guys. For some reason the police automatically place the blame on The Punisher even though they didn't know he was there or had any proof.



One of my favorite parts of the film is when Castle is tracking down these silly ass building jumper guys. As one of them does a crazy jump flip from one rooftop to the other, Castle fires a grenade at him and he blows up in mid air. It was really quite funny.



Not everyone is going to like this movie, from a snobby film critic perspective it is really, really bad. The dialogue is awful, the acting absurdly bad, the story was shit, but no one can deny the rabid action. Now, as a guy that just loves going to the movies and is a fan of comic books... I thought it was awesome. If you read any bad reviews for this film, I will tell you strait up there is truth to everything they are saying. One thing they won't tell you is that ‘Punisher: War Zone' is ridiculously delightful and hardcore.

Whatever movie you decide to go see always remember to enjoy your time at the movies.

 
GeekTyrant Homepage