Punisher: War Zone -- The Reviews/Comments thread
 

Rather than everyone throwing in their 2 cents in a "How Badly Punisher will bomb thread", I thought I would start an actual reviews thread for comments from all of you.

I saw it this evening and I thought it was a good B action film. Lots of bloody and grotesque violence and some really dark humor as well.

I never actually heard of Ray Stevenson, but I thought he was well-casted as Castle. He has a very dark and brooding presence that actually suits the character more than what Thomas Jane brought to the last movie. Was not a fan of Dominic West's Jigsaw. I thought it was one of his worst acting performances ever. It was sooo cartoonish and over the top....unless it was intended to be that way like a comic.

I actually was surprised that Lionsgate and Marvel did a re-boot of the story like Hulk than an actual follow-up to the last film. The flashback scenes of Castle when his family was murdered at a picnic through me off. Was that how the comic was written?

Overall, if your a fan of the character and the last film, then I would recommend this movie.

Go out right now and buy ROME: THE COMPLETE FIRST & SECOND SEASON. You can thank me later :)

I posted this in the other thread:
I liked it... lots of fun, no matter how ridiculous and laugh out loud some parts were. Highly entertaining with Ray Stevenson kicking all kinds of ass. He makes a great Frank Castle and most of the supporting cast does a great job - with the notable EXCEPTION of Dominic West as Jigsaw...just cringe inducing the whole time. The over the top wiseguy accents are terrible and feel forced as hell. Dash Mihok also doesn't bring much to the table, adding to the 'B movie' cartoon feel, which just doesn't jive with the rest of the tone.

The action is extremely violent and over the top, but that all works...it's a lot of fun watching bad people get what they deserve. If they had done better by the villain, I think this one really would have been something special. As is, check your brain at the door and get ready to watch bad guys get blown away.

I had a great time at the theater. The hate for this movie is surprising. I read a ton of Punisher comics when I was a teen and this film is my favorite of the three. Id say it just slightly edges out the first one (I was so pissed he didnt wear the skull shirt in that first movie!). I was not even going to see it if it wasn't rated R and I'm glad that the rumors of a pg 13 cut were just rumors. Ignore the fancy pants critics. If you like action movies like Rambo, or are a Punisher fan go see it. I'm sick of pg 13 horror movies marketed to teen girls. This is a Punisher film for people who can stand to see some carnage and get a thrill out of it. Its fun to see bad people getting f'd up. Jigsaw was a little silly and the big changes in his origin bothered me some, but thats my inner comic geek acting up. In contrast this movie gets Punishers origin panel perfect! Overall its one of the best 9 bucks I've spent this month.

I look forward this team doing another Punisher movie soon!

I wonder if it was just a coincidence that Julie Benz was in this and Saw V, or if she signed some sort of "Lionsgate 2 Jigsaw Picture Deal as a Brunette" contract :P

BIG thumbs up to that suggestion.

I'm planning on seeing Punisher solely because I'm such a big fan of Stevenson as result of his turn as Pullo in Rome. Fantastic actor.

I don't have HBO so I haven't seen Rome but I did get season one on sale at Best Buy for $39.99. Pretty good considering that Season 1 and 2 can cost anywhere from $59.99 to $89.99 each. I have only seen Ray in King Arthur but I look forward to seeing him in more things

I had low expectations for this film. I was going to go see it in a couple weeks, maybe, or possibly wait for the BR. Then yesterday afternoon, a friend of mine texted me, and her exact words were, "War Zone was FUCKING AWESOME. I think I even prefer it to the Tom Jane Punisher. They shot it like a comic book panel and its easily one of the top 5 comic book movies."

I immediately told her she would rue the day if she was lying to me and gathered up a friend and went to the theater.

And you know what? She was spot on with her review. The Punisher works best when you just put him in the middle of NYC and let him start fucking up the mob. Basically, this was the comic book movie equivalent of Rambo. From the minute Stevenson steps on screen, you're getting just this obscene amount of murder and mayhem served up by the Punisher. Its ridiculous. And it works. I hated the fact that it took Jane walking off the movie in order to get them to give it a hard R, but Stevenson took it and ran with it. He makes you forget Thomas Jane ever donned the mantle. He is that good. The only complaint I have with it is that the Kingpin was never mentioned. I only hope that this does well enough to warrant a sequel, with Stevenson reprising the role.

I think I laughed as much at this movie as I did at Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder (still the better movies, natch :D). Between the myriad novelty deaths, Dominic West acting like a zombie Paulie Walnuts auditioning for a role as the Joker in the first Batman movie, the "recruitment" scene, the clusterfuck of a climax (which, arguably, is about half as good and hilarious as PE's abandoned barn storm of violence, but still frickin' brilliant), Newman, the fact that the Punisher said as many words as Schwarzenegger in The Terminator, Loony Bin Jim, and the last line of the movie (uttered by the dumbass detective tailing him), this was a expertly made guilty pleasure.

It more than beats out Doomsday and Death Race for the title of guilty pleasure of the year.

Just noticed that this is Julie Benz's third straight Lionsgate feature. She must have some kind of multi-picture deal with them (Rambo, Saw V and Punisher)

Anyways, I can definitely see an "Unrated" DVD coming for this.

One last comment, I thought it was hysterical when Jigsaw and his brother went out and recruited every crime syndicate stereotype you could think for that final shootout with Castle.

Last two weeks, I saw Slumdog MIllionaire, Benjamin Button, The Wrestler and Let the Right One In pretty much consecutively. It was great.

This week I got to see The Punisher punch a dude so hard in the face his face caved in and The Punisher's fist went into his skull.

YES.

Also Dominic West's hilariously scenery-chewing performance was amazing. The only part that was lame was the finale, which felt less "big" than the other action sequences.

Wow, am I in the minority here? "War Zone" was the biggest pile of dog shit I've seen all year. In fact I walked out of the theater feeling EXACTLY like I did when I left "Batman & Robin" a few years back. Awful in every....single.....way......

Its funny I remember reading that they were thinking about making this a pg-13 movie to make it more "audience friendly" and thought that they had. And for the first part of the movie I kept thinking, "its amazing what gets a pg-13 rating these days" :lol:

This movie was awesome, but for all the wrong reasons. I was laughing my ass off at everything. The opening bloodbath, Jigsaw saying just about anything, his over-the-top insane brother, the guy taken out by a missile, the retarded cop-sidekick, the closing bloodbath. I was embarassed to be there, but I had a great time.

There were 2 really strange things about the movie, though. First, there's a severe lack of character development for Frank Castle. My date thought he was the bad guy for the first half of the movie and she had no idea why he was killing everyone.

Secondly, the wife of the cop Frank killed seemed to get over it too easily. At the end, she says something like, "You killed my husband but what you do is necessary I guess." LOL

Having said all that, Lexi Alexander is really cute and based on this movie, she must be pretty cool too.

For people who liked War Zone, did you also like Shoot 'Em Up?

Yes

That film was fun if you really really just accept it for what it is...it's ok. War Zone is better...

I'll wait, with a busy month and trying to catch other movies this month, this can definately wait for it's video release.

Well, that settles it: I'm not seeing War Zone. :lol:

I fucking hated Shoot 'Em Up but had fun with War Zone... it was less 'mean spirited' and didn't have the annoying directorial 'flourishes' of SEU... however, I would definitely say my expectations were much lower for Punisher than they were for SEU when I went to see it, so that plays a factor for sure...

Pullo will get my money!

Cant wait for the bluray, and please let Ray do commentary!

100% agree with this...

Oh man. I had a blast with this movie! I knew going into it not to expect Iron Man, but a B-movie. There's so much carnage I could not stop laughing. It was exactly what I expected. Good times! :)

Ray Stevenson was GREAT and the violence in the film was spot-on. Sadly, the plot was pretty lame. The attempts to humanize the Punisher fell flat and were unneeded. The Russian mob was WASTED. And I can't remember a worse villain ever than the way that the Jigsaw was played.

This movie was 1/3rd guilty pleasure and 2/3rds big steaming pile of shit. To bad it bombed so bad it's unlikely that they'll give Ray another chance.

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

Finally caught this (I was gone from my theaters by the time I made time to see it) and loved the flick. Stevenson kicked ass and West was great. People who said he was over the top were stupid; hes no different than the joker. Percy Whitmore was hilarious to see.

I just saw Shoot em up the other day too. It was alright.

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

Just caught this last week at the dollar store, and I loved it! Great over-the-top action, and good supporting performances from Doug Hutchinson and Dominic West.

Also saw The Spirit at the same dollar theatre, and it wasn't as bad as I've heard people say it was.

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

I liked this movie too, but this statement I couldn't disagree with more. Seriously? Jigsaw was in the same league as The Joker from TDK? So do you think Dominic West got snubbed by the Academy? You've got to be fucking kidding me!? ;)

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

Nahhh, maybe in Burton Batman though. He seemed like a regular annoying guy from Jersey :lol:

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

Look I liked War Zone too. Solely for the action and Stevenson as a definitive Punisher..but...Jigsaw was too out there. It was too much of a change from who he was before to a flamboyantly insane mob type.

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

I will say the stupidest thing was Jigsaws face getting fucked up by the glass, but his hands just got some scratches :lol:

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

Didn't know 'Newman' was in this.

Guy playing The Punisher was good.

Meh film overall.

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

Really enjoyed it

not ground breaking but fun, violent with cool kills

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

So anyone pick this up today? I got the blu-ray and it was just as good as it was in theaters. This time it was nice to see those extreme kills in slow-mo.

Ray was good, but I still wonder how Jane would've been in the film. I hope it does better on rentals/sales like the last one did. Maybe another sequel could be made on the cheap.

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

In my cinematic universe, "over-the-top" is a positive, not a negative.

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

Just about any move anyone decided to do was sooooo bad I had a lot of trouble getting into the movie. It felt like Paris Hilton wrote it on a dare but she actually took it seriously and someone everyone involved went "Wow, that's exactly what cops would do or say Paris!"

It made Max Payne feel like watching the Wire. How much would it really cost to get Garth Ennis to actually write a script? Or maybe JMS.... there are a bunch of comic book / hollywood writers out there to pick from, how they ended up with that turd of a talent is beyond me.

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

I rented this today (mainly for my grandfather) and I must admit I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Yes, the writing and directing are both horrible. Any attempts at senitment were totally hamfisted and the less said about most of the cast (at least Wayne Knight and a handful of others were good) the better. Stevenson looked the part but was used more as a prop than as an actor so I can't really judge his performance as there wasn't much for him to do. Hell, he barely spoke. Then again, even when Jane wasn't speaking in the previous film I could still picture what the Punisher was thinking (especially during the fight with the Russian).

Except for the bit with the chandelier and that silly shot of the guy getting blown up by the rocket, I really dug the action sequences. And I liked that brief moment with the cop who gave Castle his keys during the opening action sequence. I also prefered how was handled here versus how it happened in the comics. Although they sort of reference that

I still wish we could have seen the movie Thomas Jane wanted to make and I hope some day we do.

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

Ray Stevenson's Punisher > Thomas Jane's Punisher

100%

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

Thomas Jane > Ray Stevenson

Holy shit that was entertaining. The Villains were beyond over the top & some of the acting was okay but lots of violence, gore, & action....

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

Just watched this last night. Wow, I can honestly say there wasn't one factor of it that I preferred over Thomas Jane's. If you're a 15-19 year old guy, you'll probably love it, I suppose. But to me, it was action-packed, yes, but beyond that, was awful.

:thumbsup: to this earlier review:

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

I agree. Though I enjoyed most of the action and had a better time than I expected to, this was an inferior film to the Thomas Jane version. Which is why I hope we get to see one day the sequel that Thomas Jane wanted to make.

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

No, Stevenson is a better Punisher...and the action was much better. While it needed a tighter script I could watch for it's replay value a lot more than I could for the boring Jane film. And c'mon..that's such a shit origin in his version. Travolta was a weak villain to boot..the whole plot of getting "vengeance" on his character was just stupid and boring.