nan | 楠木

Another comic book adaptation, The Punisher has its memorable / enjoyable moments, but on the whole is not as good as other Marvel franchises that have made it to the big screen in recent years.

Thomas Jane is Frank Castle, an undercover cop whose family is brutally slain in vengeance after his police work gets local underworld boss Howard Saint’s (John Travolta) son killed. Castle should have been killed as well, but he lived to tell the tale, and returns to take revenge.

The film suffers somewhat from a split personality. For a while you’d say it was a very serious revenge drama, with the way that the family slaughter is committed and etc. But for many parts of film it is also very campy and full of one-liners. The film is actually fun when its campy (think Army of Darkness stuff), but it doesn’t entirely fit with the overarching theme of grim revenge. The end result is if you watched the film in segments, you might find it more enjoyable than the film as a whole.

6/10