Random Film of the Week(end): The Punisher (2004)

(thanks, Flauntvids!) 

The Punisher 2004When I finally got around to seeing the 2004 version of The Punisher last week, I was wondering how I missed this one back then in theaters (although I’d not pay a dime to see this flick) or on cable. Then I realized that the film came out when I was in a crazy jobless phase and had chopped out any ideas of spending money to hit the local theater (or any other theater for that matter) until I was back in the black.

Well, even if I’d wanted to see this gloomy and unintentionally hilarious (yet erratically violent) movie, I’d have chosen to save my money. While it works on a basic level of grunting guys saying unintelligible stuff before trying to out-kill each other, the film is far too uneven to be entertaining unless there’s someone on screen getting killed in a ridiculous manner. Where the first (and forgotten by most, save for the more die-hard Marvel movie fans) Punisher film from 1989 was an automatic camp cult classic thanks to Dolph Lundgren’s grumbling and mumbling through the role as sullen serial gangster murderer Frank Castle, some cheesy sets and laughable action scenes, this reboot tries a wee bit too hard to capture the mood of 70’s and 80’s action films to the point that it feels a wee bit outdated on a few fronts… Continue reading

This Sunday’s Kind of A Drag…

(thanks, CoolCoolMovies!) 

Oof. Well, today was kind of non-productive on a few levels, but that’s probably a good thing. I’m still toiling away on a bunch of stuff (some reviews, a few post CE Week articles and some brief impressions of a few games I saw recently), but I have a kind of kooky week coming up and am conserving energy for some of these events. As the weather folks say it’s going to be a bit of a thunderstorm-y start to the week, that means I need to break out the broken umbrella and keep my paws crossed that it survives the early Monday morning trek I need to make.

As for that clip above, it serves double duty as description and hilariously violent reminder that there was a Punisher movie (from 2004) I’d actually never seen before last night. I found it to be pretty terrible overall (a lack of dialog, humor that doesn’t work properly and some odd casting choices make it more “interesting” than watchable), but you do get to see John Travolta’s evil Howard Knight character get bumped off in a really creative manner. Hey, I was laughing through the bulk of the action scenes here and while the film is quite heavy on the carnage, it still doesn’t beat The Punisher: War Zone for pure nastiness and mean-spirited (or REALLY over the top and hilarious) violent content. Not that I’m in a violent mood or anything, folks – bad movies of all types just make me laugh a lot when I need to…

Hmmmm. I think I need some ice cream or something… back in a bit.