The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Let's get this out of the way first. This is a bad movie. Not just bad. Pretty terrible in fact. Ok well now that that's out of the way.

Good:

• The Punisher. Ray Stevenson is a great Punisher. Stevenson looks just like Frank Castle's depicted in the comics. I never watched Rome but from what I've seen of him in Punisher he seems like a capable actor and a very good replacement for Thomas Jane. It's a shame though that he wasn't given more time to play with the character. Whenever the Punisher was on screen, it was a moderately entertaining movie and when he wasn't it had me wishing he was back.
• Art direction. The movie's dark and gritty and fits the Punisher universe very well.
• Violence. It's not the amount of violence. Its the absolute ridiculousness and over the top qualities of the violence in this movie. The things Frank Castle does in this movie makes the recent Rambo look fairly tame in comparison. I don't want to ruin anything but just know this, he breaks an old ladies neck. Yes you read that correctly. The Punisher breaks an old ladies neck. The amount of brutality that Castle inflicts on some of these guys is so bad you may have to look away in some parts and might even feel bad for some of them. When expecting the Punisher to just kill an enemy in a normal fashion, he goes above and beyond, at one time putting his fist through a man's face. Literally, he put it through a man's face. Waiting to see the next ridiculous, over the top kill was the only thing that kept me from leaving the theater.
  
• Humor? I'm not 100% sure this movie was supposed to be as funny as I found it. Thanks to the over the top violence, this was a very, very funny movie. It had a lot of dark humor to it, which fit the comic's feel well and I've never laughed so hard at people being destroyed in such brutal ways though I'm still not sure if that's necessarily a good thing.
• Newman. Yes Newman from Seinfeld plays Micro, the Punisher's tech and arms guy. It will take you by surpise at first and although it takes you out of the movie for a time, he ultimatley does a very good job of making you like the character.
  

Bad:

• Middle of the movie. This is when the movie lost me. I'm able to suspend my disbelief if you give me crazy and impossible action scenes, but don't give me crazy action scenes and impossible scenarios, then try to get me take you serious all of a sudden by forcing me to watch stupid characters with bad dialogue .

Ugly:

• Looney Bin Jim. To his credit, Looney Bin Jim comes off as a very good impersonation of the Joker. Had the Joker been both homosexual and mentally retarded, it really would have been spot on. This character was just stupid to include in the movie for no purpose and after going through the entire movie, wanting a hideous, terrible death for this character, we are awarded with nothing.
  
• Urban Ninja Guys. There are three thugs in the movie who spend their screen time, doing flips and screaming. Not to mention the leader is a black meth head with dreads and a thick irish accent. Yeaaa... The only thing that is redeeming about these characters being in the movie at all is the fate that befalls them.
• Subplot. I didn't care that they got rid of this subplot involving terrorists bringing bioweapons into the city. What I did care about is that it's brought up as if it will be the main problem, then solved in the middle without the help of Frank Castle at all, and quickly forgotten. Don't waste my time with a pointless story trying to be relevant when I just payed 11 dollars to watch a pointless story about bad people being fucked up to all holy hell.
  
• Jigsaw-LBJ Relationship. Everytime these two brothers were on screen, they had me looking for any sharp object i could use to distract myself from the pain. Dialogue was terrible, their performances were terrible, and their relationship was just plain creepy, bordering on incestous.
• Not enough punishment. The creators of this movie decided, in their infinite wisdom, that viewers don't actually want to see the Punisher at all. They would much rather watch unfunny villians do and say unfunny things, all while doing nothing of consequence to actually futher the plot. Just showing Frank Castle kill a bunch of thugs in a gunfight doesn't do the character nearly as much justice as he deserves. Frank Castle is a killing machine yes but he's also a strategic genius and wages pyschological warfare as well as the violent kind. Criminals fear him more than any other superhero, including Batman. No one is feared like Frank Castle by the regular criminal because they've heard horror stories about what Castle has done to others and they know that they are next. Show the planning, show the fear, show everything the Punisher is in the comics. If you are going to adapt a comic book, at least be respectful to the character and what he does instead of just what he looks like.
  

In all, this was not a good movie. Terrible dialogue, terrible story, terrible characters. It really is a shame because the look and feel of Stevenson's Punisher does fit the comics very well. He just isn't given enough time to actually do anything with it. The only redeeming quality of this movie is the ridiculous violence and the pure shock value of seeing the Punisher truly go to work on some no name bad guys. The gruesome kills and over the top violence were almost enough to warrant the 11 dollar charge but instead, just take a pen, and jab it into your eye for an hour and a half because it is sure to be less painful than watching this piece of shit movie.

Final Verdict: D