DVD Talk Forum - Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

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Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

I think Michael Clarke Duncan would be a good Barracuda....

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

Barracuda was funny guy. I recall one comic in which he goes after some guy that owes him money. After beating the hell out of the guy and throws him in his trunk but not until after telling the guy he was going to fuck him and then kill him. If I recall correctly the guy ends of getting fed alive to sharks.

The first punisher comic I read had jigsaw. It was indeed the part of the warzone line. They had one where wolverine and frank were fighting in some war, probably Vietnam. Great stuff.

My favorite punisher was the 2099 future version. It was great because towards the end Doom takes over the world in his comic and the Punisher becomes his right hand man. Then a robot punisher becomes the hero punisher trying to kill the human punisher, Wild. Highly recommend the 2099 Doom and Punisher. Spider 2099 wasn't so good. I don't recall if there were others.

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

Saw this yesterday. Entertaining, extremely violent and yes, over the top. Personal taste leans toward the Thomas Jane Punisher but this one was enjoyable.

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by Baron Of Hell (Post 9369898)

If I recall correctly the guy ends of getting fed alive to sharks.

Spoiler:

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

Yeah...Punisher got his ass kicked hard..of course..I've never seen the Punisher kick a guy's ass and then kill him off cuz he's just had enough with the SOB. I liked that ending...

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

So I guess we all definitely want to see Barracuda in a third Punisher film, huh? :D

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

Well really how many Punisher Villains do we know?..very very few..and well Jigsaw's out. Barracuda would be nice to see..oh man, Barracuda alone would have more gunfire than all the baddies in War Zone. I'd like to see more of Frank's hand-to-hand combat. I mean...he can really kick some ass in a fight. Barracuda pushed Frank to any and all methods to take the fucker down...

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

Yeah, cos other than Ma' Gnucci and her boys, who else is there? Bushwacker? And the first film made Harry Heck (Thorton) far better than he ever was in his single panel appearance in the comics

Spoiler:

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

Now see if they made Welcome Back, Frank like it was in the comics..it'd be genius. It was great comeback for Frank. You don't need a whole film to show his origin. One event makes him, he kills the nature that created that event. The Punisher is what he is...he kills crime. Show what made him, fast forward a bit and bam Punisher's kicking ass. UGH...fucking Jane's Punisher. Fucking different location too..it's like wtf?

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

I actually liked that the first movie got out of New York. I get tired of most all the Marvel properties constantly takin place in New York. Originally, the Jane flick was gonna take place in Biloxi. I'd be curious to see that kind of setting get trashed by the Punisher on the big screen.

But, yeah, the origin is what slowed the first film to a crawl. That's why I was hoping for the sequel Jane wanted to make cos we'd finally see him as the Punisher 100% of the time.

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by rexinnih (Post 9369913)

Saw this yesterday. Entertaining, extremely violent and yes, over the top. Personal taste leans toward the Thomas Jane Punisher but this one was enjoyable.

I'm in the same boat. I blind-bought the BR at Target today. It was decent, but had no emotion. You couldn't see Frank's torment like in the Jane movie.

I'll watch it one more time in the near future. If it doesn't grow on me I'll likely sell the Blu-ray.

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

I'll buy it from you. Watched it tonight, loved it. Exactly what the Punisher is supposed to be. I was laughing my ass off the entire time.

= J

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

I'll have a peek at it, this looks interesting, even if not for the right reasons.

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

I watched this last night and really enjoyed it.

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

I saw this in theaters and I recall not being a big fan of the film.

I just watched it on BD and - holy fuck - was I wrong. Is it bad? Yes, but it's AWESOMELY bad. I forgot just how much carnage is shown. I think the last time I saw a film this violent was Rambo. It's just 100 minutes of pure adrenaline and ass-kicking. I even dl'd the digital copy to my iPhone so I can watch The Punisher kick a chair through a guy's eye while I take a crap. Radical!

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

If anyone is counting, the film made more in DVD sales in its 1st 5 weeks, then it did world wide in theaters.

http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/2008/PUNS2.php

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

I like Patton Oswalt's write up on it as much as I like the movie itself (which is to say, a lot):

Quote:

THE "IS THIS HAPPENING?" MOVIE CLUB

There's a floating, secret society of movies that includes such illustrious titles as RUNNING SCARED (the Paul Walker version, not the Hines-Crystal-Smits one), ANACONDA, and the immortal, why-hasn't-Criterion-done-a-release DEEP BLUE SEA.

These are the kinds of movies where, while you're watching it, usually with a group of friends, you think (or say aloud), "Is this HAPPENING?"

"Did I just see a from-inside-the-snake-view of John Voight being eaten?"

"When did this Paul Walker action movie become a Pasolini kid-rape parable?"

"Wait -- did I just see Samuel L. Jackson get eaten by a shark? Oh wait -- now ANOTHER shark is coming along and pulling his head off while the first shark swims off with his body?"

The reason you're so brain-cracked as you watch these movies is that, unlike on-the-borderlands fare like THE STORY OF RICKY, DEAD ALIVE and ICHI THE KILLER, these are boilerplate, wide-release films put out by major studios. In thousands of theaters, all across America, for anyone to see. And yet they contain winking corpses, black-light massacres and Saffron Burrows stripping down to bra and panties so she can electrocute a genius-level shark.

Somehow, someone tricked someone else at the MPAA and, let's face it, the studio itself to let these wonderfully transgressive movies loose to roam the countryside.

Well, it happened again.

PUNISHER: WAR ZONE is THE BEST time I've had at the movies this year. I've seen better films. MUCH better films. SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, THE DARK KNIGHT, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN and RACHEL GETTING MARRIED I'm sure, someday, will influence my work and make me think twice before I let slide something hack-y and un-original.

But I didn't ever feel like standing up on my chair and cheering. None of them made me cackle like a railyard hobo who's found half a cigar and a can of beans. And none of them had a scene where Dominic West, in Frankenstein makeup, convinces black, Chinese and Irish gangs to put aside their differences and act as cannon-fodder in his hissy fit vengeance scheme against Frank Castle, aka The Punisher.

People are not shot in this film. They have holes blasted through them or are turned into sticky mist.

People are not punched in this film. They have their faces pummeled off.

Children are not threatened. They are un-fixably scarred for life.

The film does not contain a hero. It does not contain an anti-hero. It contains a glowering Brit who huffs around in a bullet-proof body canister like he's searching for the perfect toilet to unleash a ten burrito dump. He's just as awful as the villains he dispatches and, unlike scores of other action heroes, does not utter a single clever or ironic quip. He'll plug someone and already be turning away, scanning the horizon for something else to kill. He's played by Ray Stevenson, but could have easily been played by Ray Stevens. He's more a force of destruction than Jason Vorhees or Michael Meyers could ever dream on.

Keep in mind, all of this mayhem, insanity and just-plain bugfuckedness is contained in one of the most beautifully shot films I've seen this year. It's almost distracting, how gorgeous cinematographer Steve Gainer's palette is. It's like he studied BLACK NARCISSUS and THE RED SHOES right before shooting a snuff film.

And director Lexi Alexander, a former stunt woman and kick boxing champion, has just groin-punched her way to the front of the line in the Nutball Director's Pantheon. Make room, Miike! Step aside, Kounen!

PUNISHER: WAR ZONE is still in theaters. Barely. It took ten days for it to body-crawl past 7 million dollars.

Won't you make a pasty shut-ins Christmas dreams come true? Won't you call up an old friend, perhaps an unhinged asshole you've been avoiding , and take them to see PUNISHER: WAR ZONE? Or maybe the whole family, while you're still digesting Christmas dinner? How amazing would it be if PUNISHER: WAR ZONE rallied, and beat MARLEY AND ME and BENJAMIN BUTTON on Christmas Day?

It'd help an angel get his wings, I bet.

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?f...ogId=456847981

Though I haven't seen the other 2 movies in this "club," I remember getting the same "WTF?!" reaction during Running Scared.

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

^ Very true, and hilarious. Stevenson is such a badass simply because he doesn't try to be. I love the lack of quips and one-liners. The guy pulls no punches. I didn't think I'd see a film that could give Rambo a run for it's money and, yet, here it is. Makes me want to watch it again tonight.

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

When this movie came out in theaters, I saw it and thought it was great and I was telling everybody to go see it (not on this board--I wasn't a member yet) and nobody listened to me. Now everyone's seeing it on DVD instead of the big screen and loving it. It really should have been seen on the big screen. I haven't gotten the DVD yet, so I can't say how it plays on a TV set, but I will soon.

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

I loved the fucking shit out of the film, even w/ it's faults. Sadly...I don't see a sequel to this one based on the shit sales so far.

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

My girlfriend tried to convince me to turn it off after ten minutes because she was scared and grossed out by the violence. That's how fucking cool this movie is.

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

I usually love movies like this, (Shoot 'em Up for example), but I must be in the minority here. Maybe I need to be a Punisher comics fan, but I really didn't care for this movie. I blind-bought it on BD, watched it twice and even skipped through it a third time to give it a fair chance, and I just could not find myself liking it enough to keep it, so I sold it.

I liked the Tom Jane Punisher (especially the DC) much better.

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

I didn't quite like this movie. I found the violence in it strangely mean-spirited (I guess all violence is mean spirited) and over the top as some people already said. And I like my violence unadulterated and occasionally over the top. I think something just didn't click with me with this film

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ash Ketchum (Post 9530242)

This was me. And I have my friend, Vicky, to thank. An awesome chick if there ever was one. The minute I had a Punisher junkie tell me that the movie was 90 minutes of nothing but Rambo level violence, I was all in for it. And with the DVD and BR release (this movie looks GOOD on BR), I've been letting everyone borrow it and so far, only one person has returned it having not loved it.

Re: Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread

I haven't seen this film since it came out in theaters....for that short as fuck span of time.

Hot damn does this film have so much violence and it's all good. It's all shot so well. None of the crazy ass editing or anything. All the crazy acting is in the frame and not in the editing. Fucking awesome film. Fuck does it look great on Blu-Ray. I still hold that Stevenson is the better Punisher, and...possibly the better actor too (RS doesn't have much to work w/ here based on story but he looks and acts like the character for sure). The story is weak but Stevenson and the action in it are great.