Punisher: War Zone Review

Review of:  Punisher: War Zone

Overall Rating:  4   "ALP (Avoid Like Plague): You'd tell your friend to get the hell out if they brought it over and insisted on watching it."


Punisher or Punishment? After spending a long time stewing over Punisher: War Zone. I realized that I both loved and hated the movie for what it was supposed to be, and what it could have been.

As it was presented, Punisher was an insipid boom fest that fell below even the standards of other boom fests such as the video game to movie rendition of Hitman.  To add insult to injury the director stripped 10 minutes of footage that actually had plot in it to make Punisher more of a boom fest and falling short of both.

The entire aim of Punisher: War Zone was to show that Frank Castle still had a human side to him.  In order to sell the movie to the masses they left that idea on the cutting room floor and put out an example of bad speculative fiction.

Pros:

• The actions scenes were well executed.

• The flow of the movie went smoothly, although some parts of the time line are condensed.

• A small edifying moment when it shows that good can and must persevere the monstrosities of the world to come out on top.

• Not a reboot as was stated in early reports about the movie. It was more of a rewrite of his past.

Cons:

• The director set out to make a martial arts boom boom, rather than a good piece of speculative fiction.

• Dialogue between main villains seems like the work of a cheap porn script writer.

• Only a remnant of the plot was left in, detracting from the martial arts boom boom; but not satisfying the need for an actual plot.

• Characters are confused about when in the Punisher time line they exist. Depending on what statement you take from the movie they are either 4 or 6 years down the line after the murder of Castle's family.

• Not a true sequel as I had hoped when I discovered it wasn't actually a reboot.

With all aspects that I can see taken into consideration, feeling that it would leave both people who love a good plot and a good martial arts boom boom disatisfied I give Punisher: War Zone a 4 out of 10. It goes on my do not watch list.