YOU'VE BEEN PUNISHED!

By Dianne Brooks


I'm one of those comic book fans who doesn't read comic books although I
did as a kid. Needless to say I'm not comic-con diehard but I admire
the spirit of reckless fandom. That being said I was fanatical about
Saturday morning Spiderman and especially The Fantastic Four as well as
the wryly satirical Batman TV series. I gleefully welcomed the comic
book superheroes jump to the big screen from Batman to Spiderman to even
the latest Incredible Hulk. But, I fear that as Hollywood becomes
addicted to one formula, the beating of the dead horse may be fast
approaching.

All of this is to say that I don't come to the Punisher: War Zone with
any kind of prior relationship to the Marvel, Punisher Max series, so
perhaps I have no right to judge the film, or perhaps I am just the one
to come at it with my clean, no trunk full of expectations. But alas
when I read the cast list I could not help but bring some in with me:
there is Ray Stevenson, late of HBO's Rome where he played the big,
bruising Gladiator with a heart of gold. And then there's Dominic West
of the best show on television, The Wire, where he showcased a wide
range of ability and where he maybe for the first and last time played a
sympathetic character. Both of the fine actors as well as the rest of
the cast rise to the occasion of this relatively modest, by studio comic
book standards, enterprise.

Frank Castle, is The Punisher because his wife and kids were murdered by
the mob when, innocently picnicking, they witnessed a hit. This is only
told in the sparest of flashbacks, no origin story here. Ever since
he's been killing, I should say brutalizing these and other villains in
the most graphically heinous ways, no anal compulsive neatnik Dexter
here. His Alfred-like enabler is called Micro (Wayne Knight) a gun
supplier who lives with his infirm mother. In this installment, Frank
makes a mistake and kills and undercover FBI agent. Unfortunately
instead of finishing off Billy the Beaut by way of a bottle recycling
machine, Billy is rescued by the cops and emerges as "Jigswaw", all
Frankensteiny stitches and sinewy muscle. Killings continue. The widow
and impossibly cute child of the FBI agent need protection. In the
meantime all manner of strange and scary villains pass through including
McGinty and his "Urban Free Form Gang" who practice some wacked out
version of parkour. It all culminates, as these things always do, with
an elaborately staged 1 versus 100 shootout...guess who wins?

Director Lexi Alexander made sure that she listened to fans by keeping
the look of the film as close to the comic books as possible, since that
was a big complaint about previous incarnations, the first with Dolfe
Lundgren in 1998 and another even sparer attempt with Thomas Jane in
2004. Thus the palette swings between extremes of red and orange and
dark blues and greens, the giving the film a very dark yet not quite as
surreal feel as the gold standard of comic book look, Sin City. In any
case, it works to create a scary netherworld of insane eye-popping
violence. From the face-grinding machine to the exploding parkourist,
it almost never stops.

Alexander herself is a crackup and has provided us with enough
tongue-in-cheek moments to take the edge off. There was a lot of
laughing at places where say, the Punisher, having already impaled a
villain then uses his head to break the jump/fall. Ouch...yuck! Yes,
I'll admit it, I did have to turn away at times and my advice is that
although it's lots of fun, don't eat dinner right before. Alexander and
her cast have expanded the comic book film into a hybrid of action hero
dynamics and grisly splatter horror in this fantastical piece which is
perhaps as close to authentic as any recent film adaptations have come.

The Punisher: War Zone opens Friday, December 5, 2008.

Directed by Lexi Alexander; written by Nick Santora, Art Marcum and Matt
Holloway, based on Marvel's Punisher comic book series; produced by Gale
Anne Hurd, Director of Photography, Steve Gainer, ASC; music by Michael
Wandmacher. Released by Lionsgate.

Running time: 107 minutes.

With: Ray Stevenson (Frank Castle), Dominic West (Billy Russoti/Jigsaw),
Julie Benz (Angela), Colin Salmon (Paul Budiansky), Doug Hutchinson
(Loony Bin Jim), Dash Mihok (Martin Soap) and Wayne Knight (Micro).

© Writemovies.com 2008