Stupid-Awesome: Punisher War Zone

I have seen greatness, and it is the Punisher: War Zone.

Okay, every now and then, my friend, Nik and I, venture forth to obtain really stupid movies, because... Well, we like stupid movies. And we got a bunch of them this last weekend. Some that will be reviewed soon. (Except for one which I'll bitch about later.) One of the flicks we got was the last Punisher film. Now, if you know anything about Marvel's premier psychovigilante, you know that the silver screen has not been all too kind to him. His '89 film, starring Dolph Lundgren was a borefest that might have been saved, but for the lack of a ten dollar t-shirt. His 2004 movie starring Thomas Jane was... Well... Jane's heart was in the right place, but not for movies. You see, the Punisher isn't like Batman. There's not many ways you can play him off. You can treat him like a serious character, with gritty realism and disturbing subject matter. Or you can treat him as the ultimate action hero, where he'll find as many ways to kill someone as he can. The problem is, a lot of people love the former take on the character... But movie-wise, to say that direction has been done to death would imply a Charles Bronson shaped understatement. There has been countless movies made that didn't feature a character named Frank Castle. The story has been told. And retold. And re-retold. And the sad fact is, the more realistic you get the Punisher, the more boring the story gets. And that was the problem the Jane movie had. Eventually, we want to see him shoot people. A lot of people. And people who deserve it. (Which brings up an interesting side-note with the character. There's an interesting debate on if the Punisher is sane or not. It's a very interesting topic. I've heard compelling arguments on both sides. But that might be a discussion for a later date.)

Now when the Punisher: War Zone was under production, it was beset with countless of production hurdles, from Jane's replacement with Ray Stevenson to rumors of Lexi Alexander being shitcanned off the project (she wasn't) and even some creative conflicts. When it debuted during Christmas of 2008, it did not do too well in the box office, making it one of the lowest grossing Marvel films, right along side Elektra. So I didn't see if for quite some time. This last weekend that changed, and you know what?


It's the best fucking Punisher film ever made.

When we started watching this movie, we were laughing at the bad dialogue and the simplistic plots. (I mean, all it lacked was an angry police chief screaming about being “too old for this shit.”) But then people started dying... And this shit got funny. (Odd sentence that would sound brutal anywhere else outside of a Hollywood film.)

Seriously, Frank found a neon Catholic Church. How
many of these are you seen outside of Vegas?

Let's clarify one thing: This movie is stupid. But it may be the entire epitome of “Stupid-Awesome.” I sat down and tried to count how many people got killed, and I just gave up when I got into the triple digits. There's this scene right in the beginning, where he suspends himself from a chandelier, while spinning around it shooting everyone in sight, Boondocks Saints style... This comes right after he beheads some dude with a combat knife, breaks someone else's neck, and then kills everyone at the business table. All in one minute. Frank Castle barely speaks for the first hour. The plot is so inconsequential and pointless, and I'm a guy who LIKED Revenge of the Fallen. The set designs are so silly, there is literally more neon in this movie than Batman Forever. I'm not joking! Everyone's dressed in all black, and the background are all muted blues, yellows and reds, with neon lights them all. (According to the commentary, this was on purpose to capture the feel of the comic book. It's a nice try, but it didn't work.)

The acting is laughable. Ray Stevenson is perfect as the emotionless, angry and threatening Punisher the same way that Courtney Love played Larry Flynt drugged out wife. (In other words, was he really acting?) The rest of the cast was so over the top, you ended up wondering if it was like Mark Hamill in Star Wars: Badly acting, or acting badly? Dominic West who played the villain Jigsaw was hamming it up on the screen so much, it was a total hoot to watch. Doug Hutchison who played Jigsaw's brother “Looney Bin Jim” was also hamming it up to the Nth degree. Wayne Knight played Microchip, the Punisher's tech supplier... And you just can't watch him in a movie without blurting out Seinfeld jokes or dilophosaurus gags. Dash Mihok played Det. Martin Soap, a character who I wasn't very fond of in the comic books, but here... He's so laid back with his portrayal of him, he's got some of the best lines in the movie. In a weary voice, he calmly speaks “Ah God. Now I got brains all over me.”

The rest... Who gives a crap really? It was so damn fun to watch.

Yeah, we'll take four McDoubles, three large fries, and
two McRib meals. And throw some extra wetnaps in.

Everything is so over-the-top... I think the best comparison would be 'Hobo with a Shotgun' or 'Machete'. It totally feels like a Grindhouse movie. There's a scene where the Punisher punches in a guy's face. He's not wearing brass knuckles, or any kind of enhancement. He just punches his fist through a guy's face. There's these obnoxious jackass free-runners high on meth running around, and he blows up one of them with a grenade launcher. It's an overtly brutal movie. And it's so damn brutal, it becomes funny. It's a live action Road Runner movie. The picture you see to the left? That's an actual scene from the movie. It's Jigsaw and his henchmen in a car, looking like they're ordering from McDonald's. It such a surreal flick. If there's a major character in this movie that dies, I guarantee you, it's a horrible and gruesome death. (One character actually dies by getting the glass stem of a wine glass shoved through the front of his throat, sideways.)

The director of this movie, Lexi Alexander, recently did the movie 'Lifted' which was a pretty decent movie, which makes me think that the odd campiness of the Punisher: War Zone had to be done on purpose. And above all else, it felt more like the Punisher than any of his previous movies. Ray Stevenson absolutely looked the part. He looked like a guy who you don't want to screw with. He looked grizzled, angry, and professional. No offense against Thomas Jane, I think he's just too attractive to be Frank Castle.

The movie clocks in at about 100 minutes. It's pretty fast paced, it's a total 'shut your brain off' movie. I went into this movie expecting a rotten stupid movie, on a Uwe Boll level, and I ended up being surprised with what I think was one fun and awesome time. Bottom line, is the movie good? No. Is the movie fun? YES. And I can guarantee you there's worse things to sit through... Which I'll talk about with the next 'Stupid-Awesome' entry. (Or I might not. I'm still determining if I want to review it at all.)

Stooge Rating:
CURLY