Punisher War Zone: gone with the wind it ain't...

(note, i hate capitalizing letters, so enough of that)

last night i went and saw punisher: war zone. being a comic book fan, i tend to enjoy these movies. comic books usually translate into movies well enough, though some comic books need to be kept in the basements of fanboys (who the hell wants to see an ant-man movie?). i've seen the previous two punisher movies. the one with dolph lundgren is pretty much incomprehensible, but then, a lot of 80s movies were. and it's dolph lundgren... other than rocky 4, what has he made that's any good ("if i can change... and you can change... everyone can change!!" <-- classic)? i really enjoyed the one with thomas jane, but it was a little too cartoony. plus i have problems believing john travolta as a villain. i like the guy, but come on, the dude from grease doesn't scare anyone. so in seeing the new punisher, i was really hoping for something decent...

now when i say decent, let's get a few things straight. i like comic book movies, but i'm also a realist. it's the punisher, for fuck's sake. he's a borderline psychopath who does nothing but kill bad guys. no putting them in jail, no tying them up and waiting for the cops to come, no pleading with them to change their evil ways. fuck that. the punisher is just going to come in guns a-blazing and waste some motherfuckers. and that's where his appeal lies. if we want to go see a boyscout, we see superman. if we want to see a brooding tortured soul, we go see batman (joel schumacher abortions excepted). if we want to go see the butchering of my childhood icon, we go see spider-man 3. but if we want to see some gangsters take a shotgun to the face with zero sympathy, we look to the punisher. that's all i really wanted from this movie. i wanted to see shit get wrecked. and i'm happy to say that my $10.50 was not wasted.

i know a lot of people are going to rip on this movie, saying that it had no plot, no character development, nothing but senseless gore and violence. all i have to say to that is they are 100% correct, and thank god for it...

ho... lee... shit... so many people died in this movie. i think they averaged one a minute, if not more. i might want to go back and try to keep a body count. and people didn't just die, people died in completely amazing ways. there were your normal shootings and stabbings, sure. that was in the first 2 minutes or so. after that, shit got real. for the sake of saving space and time, i'll run down my top 3 deaths of that movie (spoilers ahead, sorta):

1. while doing a completely pointless flip off of a roof onto another roof, a methed up bad guy takes a rocket to the chest... in slow motion. he explodes in a puff of smoke and a limb or two goes flying. it was completely unexpected, and i instantly burst into laughter. how could it get better?
2. the punisher throws a guy off of a roof onto wrought iron fence, impaling him. while the guy chokes on his own blood, the punisher jumps off said roof (we're talking 30 ft fall here) and kicks the guy squaw in the face, snapping his neck. again, instant laughter...
3. the cops disarm a bad guy, force him into a chair, and then tell him he's going away for a long time. the punisher re-enters the room holding a child (i think), points a shotgun at the guys face from about 4 feet away, and blows his brains to shit. at this point the entire theater was laughing...

so yeah, that's the gist of this movie. lot's of killing. there's some plot in there, but not too much. it's the same basic stuff about the punisher: man's family dies, man vows revenge, man kills a lot of bad guys. anyone who actually goes to see this movie already knows the plot, so thankfully the creative team didn't spend much time on it. it had just enough to carry you to the next awesome action scene. the acting was subpar at best. the guy who plays looney bin jim is the prick from the green mile. his new york accent actually caused physical pain. i was glad when he died just so i wouldn't have to hear him speak anymore. dominic west plays jigsaw, and he had the same problem with the accent. he dies in a particularly sweet way, so it all turns out roses. microchip (played by newman from seinfeld) is a decent supporting character, and he dies a valient death (as does his gangbanger helper). are we seeing a trend here?

a word about ray stevenson, though. i love this guy. i'll watch anything with him in it. he was badass as titus pollo in rome and as dagonet in king arthur. he does just what's needed in this movie as frank castle, but it would've been nice if he'd had more dialogue. oh, and the dockers-commercial-flash-backs were kindof annoying. no man who was in the special forces is going to look that gay...

so all in all, how does this movie measure up? it doesn't try to be more than it should, it takes itself just seriously enough to be plausible, and it provides 2 hrs of kickass action entertainment. i got exactly what i'd hoped for, exactly what i'd paid to see, and exactly what i expected. that doesn't often happen...

Punisher: War Zone = sweet