Punisher: Warzone is another flop
- Thread starter Luminus
- Start date
At the same time, it does say that it's the best Punisher movie to date.
I'm going to see this. I mainly love comic movies but admit I find it hard to get too excited for this one. I don't even get the "we are really trying this time" vibe like we got with Hulk.
The piece of info I liked best was the origin is faithful.
Second best tidbit in there was we have a Micro.
Third is Julie Benz. I have liked this woman since her Buffy days as Darla.
Those three reasons will get me there over the weekend.
I posted this thread earlier at the Marvel Comics movie boards:
The piece of info I liked best was the origin is faithful.
Second best tidbit in there was we have a Micro.
Third is Julie Benz. I have liked this woman since her Buffy days as Darla.
Those three reasons will get me there over the weekend.
I posted this thread earlier at the Marvel Comics movie boards:
Yeah, so was the Incredible Hulk. But the story part of that movie was still horrible.
Best Punisher movie doesn't mean good Punisher movie. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer was also the best Fantastic Four movie to date (3 in line).
True, but for whatever reason, the Internet is in mad, mad lurve with the Thomas Jane version. If it's at least better than that, I can forgive some accent slip-ups.
I suspect that they don't. The Punisher has only ever appealed to a certain proportionally small portion of society, and it's likely to stay that way until the character ceases to be a revenge/violence fantasy.
I'm of the opinion the story for TIH was much better and tighter than '03Hulk. Yes, having viewed the deleted scenes it could've been better but it still was above the psycho babble daddy issue laden '03Hulk.
Now back to Punisher talk. Surely we'll get a better story than Twilight.
As somebody who has never read a Punisher comic, I quite enjoyed that film.
The Box Office Mojo site has its poll:
When will you see Punisher War Zone?
47% - never
23% - DVD
12% - sometime at the theater
10% - opening weekend
7% - on TV cable/network airing
Not a strong number. You have to be a registered forum member to vote so I just voted. Currently its 920+ votes in the poll.
When will you see Punisher War Zone?
47% - never
23% - DVD
12% - sometime at the theater
10% - opening weekend
7% - on TV cable/network airing
Not a strong number. You have to be a registered forum member to vote so I just voted. Currently its 920+ votes in the poll.
Or until someone realizes that the Punisher should be written like the Death Wish films.
True, but it was still horrible. As for Twilight, that's a chick flick. It's the total opposite of the Punisher's fanbase.
I thought it was awful - Frank doesn't bother with convoluted plans - he just gets in there and smokes them...
It doesn't help that the Punisher just isn't that interesting a character. We've seen this story a few thousand times already. Embittered tough guy uses explosives and every type of gun known to man to avenge his murdered family. Thats like the plot of a third of Hollywoods yearly output. Not counting tv movies.
That depends on the writer, really. In the '80s, he was sometimes a pretty crafty guy.
I think this is the main problem, right here. As popular as the character can be with portions of the fanbase, I don't think he'll ever really click with the public.
Then again, never say never. Antiheroes are popular. If told in the right way, like Dexter, for example, you can get the audience to root for just about any character.
In fact, that makes me wonder if The Punisher would do better as something like an HBO series. The character would be a lot more interesting over story arcs than he can be in an hour-and-a-half movie.
True. Plus, no one has even heard of the character outside of a few extreme comics fanboys.
I totally agree. In fact I'm surprised, especially after the 2004 version flopped, that Marvel didn't go this route. The character would work so much more in the TV serial format, especially on HBO. I'm thinking a mixture of The Sopranos and Dexter here, which was a good example. As long as the writing and acting is decent, it could actually be a very good show.
With HBO's Rome star Ray Stevenson, if this iteration of the character performs poorly, which I have a feeling it will, why not take it to television? Stevenson is already familiar with that format, and the odds of success are probably more than on the big screen.
But that's just on the surface. In the books Frank is far more dark and fucked up then one might think. His family's murder is not what created him. It's what let him lose. He doesn't kill to avenge his family or to so no one will have to go through what he went through. He kills because he loves war and combat and is obsessed with dishing out death and violence to any motherfucker who has it coming. He doesn't kill innocent people because "they're not the enemy" and the feds would come down on him really damn fast. He's not some brute with a heart of gold. He's just as evil on the inside as he is on the outside. Take the best parts of Dexter and Captain Willard from Apocolypse Now and you have Frank. Frank should not be sympathetic. He should be terrifying. He should give the same vibe off that Michael Myers and Jason Vorhees do.
Frank is the mirror image of Captain America. Cap represents all that is good and decent about America and The World War 2 Generation. Frank is the living embodiment of The Vietnam War and all the horrors, hate, and inhumanity that went along with it. He's a walking war crime. A tragic, genocidal, atrocity made flesh. Violence is his passion. Death is his hobby.
What also makes Castle interesting is his amazing intellect. Batman has the reputation of being the guy who is always prepared and can take out anyone so long as he "has enough time to prepare". But with Batman, he takes that concept to such ridiculous levels that it stretches credibility and makes the character boring and predictable quite frankly. With Frank, it's far more believable. He's a master strategist and tactician thanks to his Special Forces training. And seeing him methodically and systematically take apart his foes using cunning, guile, and an unrelenting ruthlessness is very engrossing. And he does it all through planning, recon, and careful study of his enemy. By the end of most Punisher stories you slowly being to realize just how fucked any Punisher foe truly is.
That being said, I will see this movie I don't care how bad it is. I don't much care for the hyper-stylized cinematography, because The Punisher should always be based in realism. However what I've seen looks promising. The casting looks good. Jigsaw looks to be completely over the top like he should be. And they've brought many characters from the Ennis comics to life in this one. As along as I'm entertained I won't gripe too much. It's not like this one could really be any worse.
Woah, woah, woah.
Firstly, Batman is never always prepared. My favorite moments of Batman Begins (which stem from Frank Miller's Batman: Year One) is when Batman makes mistakes or fails -- like his first night out after meeting Gordon or when The Scarecrow gasses him and he pummels like a flying flame ball.
You mention Frank's Special Forces training, but you neglect to mention Bruce's eight years he spent abroad to learn martial arts, the Ivy League schools he went to, learning chemistry and criminology, how he studied from Hindu masters and smart detectives like Henri Ducard (who was a French detective, one of the best, in the comics, and not Ra's al Ghul's right-hand man like he is in Begins, but alas). Bruce honed and trained not only his body but also his mind and that's why he's always prepared. The gadgets just help, just like the guns, missiles and explosives help Frank.
Henri Ducard IS Ra's Al Ghul in Batman Begins.