The basics of the Second Take are simple, sometimes I’ll watch a film and have a certain reaction to it which seems to be the polar opposite to a bunch of other people. I mean sure, people have different tastes etc, however more often than not the differences in opinion that I take notice of are from people I respect. So I figure there must be something there, and many times I’ve promised myself that I will go back and rewatch the movie in question with an open mind to try and work it out. As with all my Second Takes this will have spoilers.
Back in the 90s the Punisher used to be one of my favourite characters in the Marvel universe, I couldn’t get enough of him and at the time there was only one Punisher film available to us, it had Dolph Lundren in it, it was not good, it also had no skull on his chest, like I said it was not good.
Since then we’ve made huge strides ahead in Punisher films.
The Thomas Jane Punisher film is surprisingly well put together and even the ending of it when he sets the car park alight with the Punisher symbol fits well with a lot of the comics I read as a young man and therefore fits my view of the Punisher nicely.
A sequel seemed more than likely…
Now this is strange edition of Second Take as this is the first time that the film I’m taking a second look at wasn’t watched completely the first time. I abandoned the film around fifteen or twenty minutes in, not really out of disgust or anger but more a case of I have better things to do with my time such as coupling up my socks or hunting dust bunnies.
I wrote about it ages ago, but it might have been on the old version of the blog so don’t bother looking for it. I did talk about some of the initial problems I had with it.
The second time around those problems still exist.
I think the biggest problem I have with this film is that it feels like it’s right out of the 80s and the action films that appeared throughout that decade. There is a scene where the Punisher puts a chair through some dude’s head and it just looks like it comes from American Ninja or Delta Force. There is another scene later on where the Punisher is so angry that he puts his fist literally through a guy’s head. I mean if he had this strike force in his punches then no one is walking away from the various fist fights that he has throughout the film.
Apparently the Punisher also rides the bus to the local mob house too as he needs to borrow a car to chase the character who would later become Jigsaw.
There are these little things that make the film hard to watch. He breaks his nose somehow and cracks it back into place with a pencil, that’s kind of clever I guess and is reminiscent of the Rambo scene in Rambo 3 where he cleans a wound with gunpowder showing how tough he is to transcend pain and continuing the mission. But I don’t have a clue where he broke his nose and so the scene doesn’t really work (maybe I just missed it in the Hitman homage).
The actors are all fine and Ray Stevenson is actually a pretty good Punisher based off the comic books. But it is the storyline and the most horrible dialogue I think I’ve encountered since Revenge of the Sith that really hurts this film.
It all just feels cheap and sticky-taped together and at no point do I really care what is going to happen. The other thing I learnt is that if you are batshit crazy your body is actually a lot harder than the guy that had his face smashed through with the Punisher’s fist.
The final verdict is that I was probably right to have turned it off in the first place.
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10 Responses to “Second Take: Punisher War Zone”
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Well, this time you should have been hunting coupling dust bunnies in your socks.
The thing about Punisher movies is that they are redundant. The Punisher was a reaction to films like Dirty Harry and Deathwish. To come full circle into a film just doesn't work (unless they want to ease up on the pure action and delve into the madness of Frank Castle).
The Second Take Review deserves a catchy ending. You know like The Onion AV Clubs “Year of Flops”? They use “Failure, Fiasco or Secret Success”. That''s what you need.
This is what I liked about the Punisher back in the day, his stories whilst complete and fulfilling in the comic books never really had a cinematic feel to them and I never could see how to make a really good Punisher film without pouring some really brilliant talent into it and a worthy foe.
Had the original Punisher film not been called The Punisher no one would have noticed except for the mighty marvel legal team, who after viewing the film may have thought best to lt them have it and not be associated with it.
The second film was in my opinion an interesting enough twist of the origin story that contained enough iconography from the comic books that made it worthwhile popping the Punisher name onto it and selling a bunch of t-shirts.
War Zone is possibly closest in its heart to the actual comic book which like Watchmen possibly hurts the film more than helps. It's heavily influenced by Welcome Back Frank and the Punisher Max series and in this regard it probably works.
But comic books aren't always meant for the big screen and characters need to be reinterpreted for film which I think is the mistake that Lexi Alexander has made in developing this film – she should have demanded better dialogue and plot, she certainly had the actors to play the parts!!
the rss on your page failed with the new set up..so I'll figure out how this whole logging in thing works somewhere this weekend.
That's all good, were you following the comments RSS feed? The main feed didn't seem to have any problems, I hope!
It's pretty easy to verify and you can even log in using your twitter or facebook account!
I was using the rss from IE (I don't use any fancy feed website or anything) and because you mentioned on twitter you were re-thinking blogging etc so I thought..he's taking a short break
. I'll check how the feed thing works when I'm home again.
yeah cool – let me know if it's still having problems.
I actually saw this for the first time on Sunday. I was also wondering when he broke his nose.
I tried not to let the little loop holes ruin it for me, I treated it as mindless violence. Have you read the Garth Ennis' Punishers?
I have read Ennis' Punisher but honestly whilst I enjoyed it for what it is I just can't really get back into the character, I'm assuming the Frankenstein Punisher is not going to help
I actually saw this for the first time on Sunday. I was also wondering when he broke his nose.
I tried not to let the little loop holes ruin it for me, I treated it as mindless violence. Have you read the Garth Ennis' Punishers?
I have read Ennis' Punisher but honestly whilst I enjoyed it for what it is I just can't really get back into the character, I'm assuming the Frankenstein Punisher is not going to help