When I first heard the idea of a new Punisher movie, I was a bit weary of it simply because I enjoyed the original. I was probably the only person who enjoyed the original, but hey, that's just me. So you have to wonder how well this will do and how good it will be, with the special effects in this day and age (as opposed to ten or fifteen years ago when Dolph Lundgren first became the man behind the gun)
You can immediately tell this is a Marvel movie because a lot of it is build. Much like X-Men, Spider-Man, the Hulk and Daredevil, this movie brings you the unique story of Frank Castle, a single person destined to become a super hero. It shows literally his whole family getting killed, and then after he is nearly killed himself, he must rehabilitate himself and get his revenge. Though he says revenge isn't an emotion, so it isn't really revenge, but, you get the point.
There were some parts of this movie that I didn't like- swearing, overdone sex scenes, just stuff that I didn't feel fit the movie- but the violence was right on. There was enough action to keep this in the super hero realm and not the boring genre. The supporting cast also did a wonderful job (John Travolta, Kevin Nash, Ben Foster and, yes, even Rebecca Romijin-Stamos), but perhaps the biggest stand out was Thomas Jane, who played Frank Castle aka the Punisher. He just had this quality that made the character shine. Through violence and mindgames, he got his revenge and dished out a whole lot of punishment.
It wasn't until the very final line though when we heard him call himself the Punisher, which I'm sure is setting this up for a sequel. To see some crime go down, and then have the Punisher out there fighting it? Yeah, that's going to be a much better movie. But this movie wasn't at all bad. It was actually a really good movie. I'd definitely buy the DVD.
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