The Punisher

Before the cinematic universe, Marvel produced a bundle of underwhelming, stupid, awkward, and mind-numbingly generic films that never seemed to capture the perfect blend of serious drama and comic enjoyment that the more current films are known for. They often overlooked the qualities that people appreciated in most comic books and found a way to make every comic-related story either laughably bad and cheesy, or overly moody and emotionless. One of the worse contenders of this trend was one that probably had one of the biggest hurdles to jump over due to its graphic and mature content, which was the 2004 film version of the marvel character, The Punisher. After completing his final assignment, undercover FBI agent, Frank Castle (played by Thomas Jane) has his picturesque life yanked away from him after his wife and son are murdered in a revenge plot by corrupt business owner, Howard Saint (played by John Travolta) who vowed revenge after his own son died in the drug bust which was led by Castle. Now hungry for blood and adopting a vigilante lifestyle and mindset, Frank moves to an abandoned apartment occupied by three outcasts, Joan, Bumpo and Spacker Dave (played by Rebecca Romijin, John Pinette and Ben Foster) who learn of his plans to personally kill Saint after discovering no one will go after him due to his high status. With assassins still after him sent by Saint, Frank Castle will push through whatever threats are thrown at him in order to his revenge. Based on the popular marvel anti-hero whose existed since 1974, the movie managed to beat its budget back and did well at the box office but was also critically destroyed and provided another example of a failure in Marvel’s department despite still doing strong enough to get a sequel four years later. Following the typical Marvel movie formula at the time, The Punisher promised a darker more intense spectacle, but instead produced a tonally confused, cluttered, bizarrely casted, and blandly basic mess of a film that has very little identity. Instead of being harsh and realistic, its over-the-top goofy tone and various rehashed lackluster 80s homages results in a confused movie that doesn’t do much to escape from the cornucopia of lackluster comic book adaptations at the time.

The story follows every classic story of revenge except without anything new added in to make it unique. It appears that a lot of this film’s narrative was inspired by several Punisher comics, with the two major ones being the 1994 miniseries The Punisher: Year One by writers Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning, and the 2000-01 miniseries Welcome Back, Frank by writer Garth Ennis. Since these stories were allowed to cover aggressive, brutal, and even depressing subject matters, they could avoid coming across like a generic outdated story with a standard revenge plot, which this film doesn’t have the luxury of. It doesn’t take any chances (which is something the comics made quite clear they were doing) and instead of feeling like a narrative, it comes across more like stitched-together scenes with no flow or rhythm to them. It has an awkward pace throughout, with random moments of rest being very repetitive and pointless, mixed with rushed and sloppily done action scenes. Though the original story from the comic is largely similar, it knew to make the focus on the characters and the turmoils that had to be overcome, whereas this film written by director Jonathan Hensleigh and Michael France forgets to make the characters interesting and instead focuses more on the action which is also held back by tonal restrictions. Its tone is very inconsistent, with sometimes being a brutal crime drama and other times being a comic slapstick film. Jonathan Hensleigh, who had previously written movies like Die Hard with a Vengeance, Jumanji, and Armageddon, with this being his directorial debut, and it shows with how messy this film is as an adaptation and as a stand-alone film. With a source material this dark, tormented, and intriguing, it should have been perfect for a grimmer, more serious comic book movie that was sorely needed at the time, but it was so light in tone and juvenile in presentation, it never took advantage of it, having barely any swearing and blood, absolutely no nudity or sex and yet somehow still received an R rating. Usually, the movie would be given some slack if it were prevented from going further due to a forced lower rating, but since its R and could’ve gone further, it makes it feel all the more disappointing considering what we got. Kids won’t enjoy the various women and children being murdered, but the adults won’t enjoy Popsicle-stick torture scenes and awkward slapstick.

The characters have no identity, instead either being plot devices or archetypes for simple revenge stories. From a company infamous for making such likeable, compelling, and memorable characters, the film feels entirely alien from the marvel norm, exhibiting no charm or intrigue from anyone. All the acting is flat and overall generic, never coming across as terrible but horribly forgettable. Thomas Jane looks and appropriately sounds like the character, and he is clearly enjoying portraying the role, but the writing gives him nothing juicy to work off of and he can’t go full ”Punisher” because of the confused direction and tone. The character should be tortured, depressed, unhinged, and obsessed with causing pain to his enemies, a role that probably was too extreme to tackle so out of the blue, but the manner in which this character is neutered leaves very little uniqueness for this role and just makes him come across like any random action hero vowing revenge. John Travolta is no different as a villain; he’s horribly forgettable and basically every stock evil businessman who kills people for his own gain or purposes. He resides in that horrible middle ground of being too over-the-top to be taken seriously, but just safe enough to not be fun to watch and his lack of screen time means he leaves next to no impression, and he shares zero chemistry or connection with the Punisher, so it feels so empty when he is finally killed. The supporting cast contributes nothing meaningful to the film, and even most of the henchman for the villain are characterless goons with no identity whatsoever (despite a specific one having a very odd design and battle scene). The love interest does nothing but moral support, the comic relief is incredibly obnoxious and annoying, aside from the drug addict teen played by Ben Foster, who provides a decent performance and even gives the audience the only truly intense scene involving torture with piercings, no character feels like they leave an impression and are just carbon copies of other archetypes.

The film feels like an 80s action films minus the personality. It has the standard premise, basic heroes, corrupt villains, more focus on the action than the characters and the story, and attention is given to the effects rather than the writing. But those films often made better characters, more unique and visually pleasing actions scenes, and blended drama and comedy much more fluidly (at least ones that knew what genre they were in). It doesn’t settle for one specific tone much like other marvel movies, but never goes too far in either fun or darker elements to stand out and have its own style and unique feel, despite this being a story that is prime to be its own unique thing. The shots by Conrad W. Hall are very overblown with quick cuts, obtrusive angles, and close-up focused fight scenes, but this doesn’t match with the grimmer set-ups and realistic environments that are on display throughout the movie, being overly dramatized and melodramatic in moments where it’s not needed and feels extremely hoaky. The action is very sub pare and nothing that hasn’t already been done in other action films, instead ending on mental manipulation for the climax, being very underwhelming, not worth so much build up, and leaving the film on an empty note. Once and a while, there’s a practical explosion that looks pretty cool, but they are so few and far between, they are quickly forgotten about. The film isn’t shot dark and moody, being very over lit and spotlighted in various moments. Though lacking any real color, the film overexposes scenes too much that it distracts from the intensity of some moments.

Despite being overall harmless, The Punisher fails on so many accounts for what makes a good Marvel film. It has boring and unoriginal characters, a plot so rehashed and cliched that it was being redone years before it came out, the action is nothing worth remembering and its tone is remarkably all over the place. The worse crime that the film commits is being boring and generic, especially coming from a source that should provide easy drama with dark, gritty intense storylines but was instead given a comically-over the top crime drama. Even with the R rating, nothing is this film is worth that rating and would later be forgotten by much better R rated films and much better marvel films and TV shows (even a show on The Punisher that was much better received). Nothing new for comic book movies at the time, but definitely one that left everyone feeling punished.