Director:
Jonathan Hensleigh
Starring:
Thomas Jane
John Travolta
James Carpinello
Laura Harring
Will Patton
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos
Release: 16 Apr. 04
IMDb
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The Punisher
BY: DAVID PERRY
The Punisher is one of the most miserable filmgoing
experiences of the year. Built around much sound and fury, this is a futile
but aggressive assault on the senses. Bombastic and sentimental in the same
beat, it portrays everything that can go wrong with a comic book-inspired
film, reminding the audience what luck we've had with Spider-Man and
X-Men.
This, of course, isn’t the first misfire from the newly awakened filmmaking
side of Marvel, but it is the worst, making The Hulk and Daredevil
look positively classical in their treatment of deep themes and heavy
emotions. The Punisher comics likely have the same lofty intentions
as most Marvel fare, but
under the direction of Armageddon screenwriter Jonathan Hensleigh, the
import is lost. Instead, the brooding of a man who’s lost everything he
loves because he did the right thing becomes less about questioning one’s
self and more about violently killing off the people responsible.
Sure, this isn’t that different from the underlying premise of the
Kill Bill films, but those don’t take themselves so deadly serious. While
Quentin Tarantino is daring the audience to join him on his magical
murderous tour, Hensleigh only asks for tears of sympathetic pain when the
music reaches a crescendo while the soon-to-be superhero (Jane) cradles his
dead family members following the Great Caribbean Massacre of 2004. When he
kills someone in middle of a lot of fiery cars and the camera take a bird’s
eye view to show the flames create The Punisher's skull emblem,
it’s impossible to not feel entirely disgusted by this film and its maker’s
insistence that the audience be dumb enough to care. When I say that I expect more than just overblown pomp and
circumstance in action films, I can only speak for film connoisseurs, but I doubt the comic book fans feel any
different.
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