I didn’t expect to be surprised by “Punisher: War Zone”, the latest comic book movie sequel that no one asked for. So, was my face ever red upon leaving the theater. Not from all the gratuitously splattered blood, mind you, no, it was actually from laughing so hard. Who know the Punisher could be so funny? That’s right, folks, “Punisher: War Zone” is the most unintentionally hilarious film I’ve seen in a long time. Exploding hooligans… Joel Schumacher’s “Batman” color palette… Bad over-acting by the truckload… Muddled religious overtones… All directed by a world-renowned kickboxing champion! What more could anyone want in a compulsively watchable horrible movie?
Let’s back up a little. Four years ago, Marvel and Lionsgate brought us “The Punisher”, starring Thomas Jane as the titular gun-toting comic book anti-hero. The film inexplicably relocated Frank Castle (for the uninitiated, that’s Punisher’s real name) away from his traditional New York stomping ground to Miami, where he would pursue a villainous John Travolta with not only guns, but also fake fire hydrants and popsicle-based torture. The film had its share of problems, but on the whole, it wasn’t a complete train wreck. Thomas Jane showed promise as Castle, and it was, at the very least, passable. I thought, perhaps Jane would get a better script for the sequel (which would hopefully feature the comic’s big-bad, the disfigured mob boss Jigsaw) and there he would truly be allowed to shine. After all, I’m fairly certain there’s a decent movie that could be made from “The Punisher” comics. But here we are, three attempts in (counting the 1989 Dolph Lundgren effort), and despite the filmmakers’ creatively firing in every direction, they’ve yet to hit anything resembling the target.
Grossly overcompensating for Jane’s Punisher’s perceived lack of brutality, Ray Stevenson’s version wastes no time getting to the bloodshed. In an early sequence that defines the tone for the remainder of the film, Punisher crashes a big fancy mob boss dinner party by first cutting the power, then igniting a red roman candle to illuminate his string of gory slayings that would make Jason Voorhees envious. This Punisher doesn’t just shoot everyone in the room, oh no - he gets creative. Found tabletop objects through skulls, rammed into throats, etc. When he finally does cut lose with his machine guns in this sequence, he opts to do so while hanging upside-down from a strange chandelier, spinning around and around. In slow motion, of course. It’s one of those techniques one only sees in a certain type of low-level action film, and brother, this is that film. Is it any wonder Thomas Jane reported passed on this?
But all of that isn’t what surprised me. I was surprised by how out and out ridiculous this movie got. There are numerous scenes that push the forced bad-ass style and unrelenting gore to such extremes, one can only laugh. This film may actually have an embarrassing future on video as a dorm room mock-fest. Pin all of the blame on director Lexi Alexander, who never figures out what kind of film this really should be. She lights every set with unmotivated swaths of primary colored lighting like some kind of fourth rate Mario Bava wannabe. The production designer apparently never met a tube of neon he didn’t love, as every sign and window edge in the film is aglow with the stuff. This is the last comic book property that should have this sort of Joel Schumacher “Batman” visual scheme. (If anything, “The Punisher” may benefit by going the other direction, and sucking out most of the color.) But Alexander, like most of her hammy supporting cast, seems to be under the all-too-common impression that all comic books are golly-gee-whiz colorful, and hey, this is a comic book movie, so let’s go over-the-top kooky!
Actually, a few individuals actually make it through this mess unscathed. Ray Stevenson makes a solid, imposing Frank Castle (despite my affinity for Thomas Jane in the part, I’d actually give the edge to Stevenson), and Wayne Knight and Julie Benz, neither of whom needs this crap on their resumes, are just fine in their supporting parts. It’s the actors playing the many villains (read: cannon-fodder) that are problematic, starting at the top of the heap, with Dominic West in the long-awaited part of Jigsaw. However great West may’ve been on “The Wire” (and I hear he was pretty good), he’s pretty awful here. Following the lead of Tim Blake Nelson in “The Incredible Hulk” or Tommy Lee Jones in “Batman Forever”, West hams it up at every turn, taking a character that could thrive on slow-burn subtly, and instead chewing all the scenery in sight. The gross-out facial stitching and ill-fitting Dr. No tunic he takes to wearing don’t help, either. In this, he’s really just another big-headed, loud-mouthed Italian gangster, and one wonders why he should pose any more of a threat to Punisher than any bosses that were gunned down to make way for him.
To top it all off, (and you may chose not to believe this one, I understand that,) the Punisher not only goes to church, (!) but knows his scripture as well. Apparently this is an element the screenplay put in place to capitalize on Castle’s inadvertent killing of an undercover agent earlier in the film, but the result is, unsurprisingly, a murky mess of half-baked, failed symbolism. If the giant gaudy neon-tube cross the production obviously added to a classy cathedral interior isn’t bad enough, the groan-inducing last shot of the film certainly is.
“Punisher War Zone” is worse than I was ever expecting, and I had negative expectations for this. In a twisted way, this is a film that begs to be seen, if only for it’s status as being a case study in how not to make a comic book movie. (I know there is no shortage of bad comic book movies, but you will not have this much wrong-headed fun at “Catwoman” or “Judge Dredd”, I guarantee.) In all its utter badness, it’s never boring; I’ll give it that. Marvel was wise to label this “Marvel Knights” up front, not only allowing for the R-rating, but distancing it a bit from their A-list films like “Iron Man” and “Incredible Hulk”. So put aside any fanboy hopes for a Nick Fury or Tony Stark cameo at the end. (There is, however, a new song by Rob Zombie that will rock any of your remaining brains out.) I could be wrong, but this may very well be the last big budget studio effort ever to be helmed by a kickboxing champion. If that comes to pass, only then will justice truly be served.
- Jim Tudor