The Punisher - 04/18/04

Written by: Jonathan Hensleigh, Michael France

Starring: Thomas Jane, John Travolta, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Will Patton, Ben Foster, John Pinette

Official Site

Some spoilers...

I'm a huge fan of The Punisher. Mike Zeck pioneered the character in the mid 1980's, although the character had been around for quite awhile. Frank Miller even lent to using The Punisher in his Daredevil stint. But Zeck brought the character to life.

I can't even remember the original Punisher film with Dolph Lungren. I'll have to give it another shot... but this film, with the popularity of the character still at a pretty even keel, had more to do with the comic than any comic book movie I've seen in a while (along with Hellboy).

The X-Men films are their own stories, pretty much. The second film had some Weapon X in it... but for the most part was its own. Same as Daredevil, which I didn't enjoy that much. The Hulk was a departure, as well. The Crow was pretty dead on.

Garth Ennis has been writing the Punisher lately (or, I should say over the last three or four years), and I am shocked that he didn't get a co-writing credit in this film. All three characters, Jane (Romijn-Stamos), Bumpo (Pinette) and Dave (Foster) were created by Ennis. The Russian, played by the HUGE Kevin Nash, was also his creation. Some of the action scenes were of Ennis's creation... surely deserving a co-write credit.

These characters (along with the propelling knife stunt) are all in the collection Welcome Back, Frank, brilliantly drawn by Steve Dillon and inked by Jimmy Palmiotti. Worth checking out, for certain.

Artistically, the film took a few pages from Tim Bradstreet, the man behind the covers to all of the Punisher books lately. He also designed the movie posters, which helped keep the atmosphere that he's been giving the Punisher series lately. Dark and super cool.

Note: Visit Splash Page Art if you're interested in purchasing any of Bradstreet's Punisher work. There are some incredible pieces there.

One of the first features that Hensleigh wrote was the last (for now) of the Die Hard series, which was the worst of them. Terribly written, with huge holes in it... he went on to write some better material. Jumanji, The Saint (eh, didn't like that one either), and Armageddon. He was Executive Producer on Con Air and Gone in Sixty Seconds (he hung with Jerry Bruckheimer I guess). He also wrote some of the Young Indiana Jones episodes.

Michael France has a pretty good list of credits as well. Cliffhanger, GoldenEye (my favorite of the Brosnan Bond films), Hulk and the soon to be produced Fantastic Four (which I've heard is a very cool script).

The two together produced a decent film. As I said, they should have credited Ennis... it would have looked better, since now it just looks like they ripped him off because they didn't have too many original ideas.

Direction wise, the film is pretty solid. I had a lot of fun watching this movie, and they got the characters right, except for Joan (Stamos), who was just there as a pseudo love interest. Even still, you can see why her character was there, and wasn't a total waste... but you really didn't need Rebecca Romijn-Stamos to fill in that character.

Thomas Jane ROCKED. I thougt he was great as The Punisher, and I'm hoping that he goes along with making a sequel to this film. He had the character down cold, and I'm sure he read and re-read the Ennis books to get a feel for the character. He had to have. I've enjoyed his previous work (except for Dreamcatcher), and I hope this opens up a lot of doors for him.

I'm not exactly sure what the mariachi was doing there... because that wasn't too original, and against both Hensleigh and France for originality. I thought it was a real waste of a character who could have been cool all on his own... but then the guy starts singing? Real weird and out of place.

Ari Arad and Gale Ann Hurd have got themselves a race horse with this Marvel line of films. And they're doing a decent job of them. Not sure what Stan Lee's role is, as EP, but he's there, since the original Punisher... so there. He's got six films coming out under the Marvel name in the next two years. Spider-Man 2, Man-Thing, FF, Iron Man, The Hands of Shang-Chi and Ghost Rider. Should be interesting.

Done on a $33 million dollar budget, which is pretty cheap, I suspect this film will do well. I'm kind of shocked, with the names in this film, that it's that low. Some great action, great stunts in this film. The production designer, Michael Z. Hanan, did an excellent job with this picture.

Conrad Hall is going to be an excellent DP. I loved his work in Panic Room (after working with Fincher as a camera operator on both Fight Club and Se7en, he handed over the reigns to Hall) and he did a good job here. There wasn't anything close to the stylistic approach as a Fincher film, but none-the-less he shot a good film.

I will say that this film had the most creative fire insignia I've seen since The Crow... and this one was better. The Daredevil one was just stupid.

OH, and you just HATE to see that happen to GTO's, man... it's one of my favorite cars in the world, and I thought I was going to cry... man. Too bad.