Plot: What’s it about?
The success of Marvel comic adaptations like “Spider-Man” (and its sequel), “X-Men” and “Daredevil” has led to a new comic book hero. Well…sort of. “The Punisher” was actually one of the first Marvel characters to head to the silver screen, a 1989 version starring Dolph Lungren (“Rocky IV”) was a terrible adaptation and probably held up the development of future Marvel characters for at least five years. But that was then and this is now. As mentioned before, the financial success of the “Spider-Man” franchise has led the way for other comic book heroes to get their chance on the screen. As a past comic book reader, I have been familiar with all of these heroes and “The Punisher” is by far the most occult of them all (and, to my count, there’s: Spider-Man, Hulk, X-Men, Daredevil with an Elecktra spin-off in the works). The Punisher wasn’t exactly a villan and had no real powers, just a lust for vengeance and to right what is wrong in the world. Originally appearing in the pages of The Amazing Spiderman in the mid 1970’s, The Punisher eventually got his own comic book series and later a second movie adaptation.
And as we meet Frank Castle (Thomas Jane, credited here as Tom Jane), he’s in the middle of an undercover operation. Something goes wrong and a young man is killed, but the problem is that he’s the son of a wealthy money launderer, Thomas Saint (John Travolta). Saint and his wife want revenge for their son’s death not only on Frank, but on his entire family as well. And, in one of the film’s more gruesome scenes, Frank’s entire family is killed while at a family reunion in an island paradise. Frank is left for dead, but of course he survives and is nursed back to health (otherwise, there would be no movie). With his previous life over, he vows revenge on those who killed his family and heads back to Tampa, Florida where he takes up residence in a run down apartment. Castle is a retired FBI agent and has an extensive knowledge of weapons and how to use them. He’s also turned to drinking to heal his pain. And not even the three other residents of his apartment building (one played by Rebecca Romaijn-Stamos) can’t bring him out of his shell. Naturally we see that The Punisher will probably get to Thomas Saint, by systematically killing all of his men, among them his right hand man and sadist, Quentin Glass (Will Patton). Will Frank get his revenge or be killed in the process?
“The Punisher” was a pretty good movie, far better than the one from 15 years ago (when the character was at its peak in the comic book world). The characters seem a bit cartoonish and two dimensional, but we have to realize that the basis of them is from a comic book. I was surprised at how low-budget this appears (and was) considering the star power involved. John Travolta, Thomas Jane, Will Patton and Rebecca Romaijn-Stamos aren’t exactly starving actors, you know. The movie is dark, very dark and the theme is one of the oldest in film. Still, “The Punisher” breathes new life into this rather controversial comic book hero and Frank Castle is faithfully brought to life by Thomas Jane. The plot is a bit predictable and though the movie sets the stage for a sequel, there’s no guarantee that it’ll happen. It seems that sequels are only made for movies that make hundreds of millions of dollars or for “cult classics”. I’m not sure this falls into either category. Still, I liked the movie and will probably find myself watching it again soon. Though the video leaves a bit to the imagination, the audio is outstanding.
Video: How does it look?
I broke out my old standard DVD copy of this movie and put it in my other DVD player to compare and contrast the differences between the two formats. I gave the standard DVD a score of 3 when I reviewed it a few years back and let me just say that “The Punisher” looks about 300% better than the previous DVD. For a transfer that includes a lot of blacks, the picture is very clean and free of nearly any blemish that one could imagine. The outdoor scenes and daytime scenes, arguably few and far between, look downright outstanding and it’s as if someone injected some real life into this transfer. Even for an early release on the Blu-ray format, I wasn’t disappointed in the least. Whatever Lion’s Gate did worked and I for one am very thankful. A top notch effort here.
Audio: How does it sound?
The previous standard DVD housed a Dolby Digital EX track and that’s what we get here as well. Additionally a DTS-ES mix is included. As mentioned earlier, this was an early release on the format and Lion’s Gate is now going more of the uncompressed PCM mix much like Sony. That said, the audio is just as good as the standard DVD and a little more robust in most of the action scenes. There’s a depth that’s not really present on the older DVD that really comes to fruition here. Granted there are a few soundtracks out there that sound better than this, but this does add a lot to the film and we’ve not one but two different tracks to choose from. Either one you choose will sound just fine.
Supplements: What are the extras?
Unfortunately, this is surprisingly lacking in the extras department. Whereas the standard DVD had plenty of goodies this one is featureless.
