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The only "punishing" going on in the new Punisher: War Zone is the "punishment" inflicted on those of us who have to watch it.
Ha! Heh. OK, with that out of the way, let's get serious. I'm here to talk today about the grave irreality of characters such as the Punisher, a man who can walk into a room guns blazing, and without even thinking about taking cover, is able to gun down a dozen men shooting back at him without getting grazed.
Nonsense of the highest degree. As someone who's almost beaten Medal of Honor 2, I can tell you that when the bullets start flying, you get shot just by poking your head out from behind a crate. You get shot just by thinking about shooting back. And you know what? Since we're all so "boo to human cloning," in the real world, there's no such thing as an extra guy or limitless continues.
I worry about the message this sends to our children. When they get geared up and bust in to massacre a room full of dangerous criminals, I don't want them thinking "Hey, the Punisher just stood out in the open like a stud, and he turned out all right." That's going to send them home full of two things, disappointment and bullet holes. Let's get on this, people.
Ever since his family was killed after witnessing a mob execution, Ray Stevenson (as the Punisher) has been violently eliminating organized crime families from New York City. Latest on his list: Dominic West, a career scumbag who's been acquitted of his scumbaggery once again.
Stevenson goes in guns blazing. The ensuing bloodbath leaves the boss dead, West's face horribly mangled, and an undercover agent dead by Stevenson's hands.
Consumed by guilt, he considers retirement -- yet not only is West looking to smuggle biological weapons into the city, but he's also busted his psychotic brother out of the mental ward and put together a Punisher-hunting posse.
Do you enjoy heads exploding? Wait, better question: Just how much do you enjoy heads exploding? Tons? More than tons? So much you sometimes think your own head might explode from thinking about it so much? Really? We should totally hang out some time.
Also, that's about how much you'd need to like skulls kerploding to get anything out of Punisher: War Zone, a widely incompetent murderfest that can't even find any style in its bloody-but-generic scenes of mass slaughter. Come on! All it takes to make violence look acceptably arty is some flying doves or anime-style neck spurts! Is that so much to ask?
Maybe this gruesome display is director Lexi Alexander's way of staying true to the comic, but I'd say he does that well enough with his broad, exaggerated characters, from man-of-no-words Stevenson to ultra-sleazeball West, whose wiseguy accent is actually thicker than the horsehide stitched across his shredded face. The recent success of comic book movies has been due in large part to inspired casting -- and Stevenson and West, refugees from ended HBO series, certainly have the chops to bring something to the role -- but the script's just got nothing there for them.
Worse yet, War Zone actually seems convinced that an imperfect justice system can only be redeemed by mass vigilante murder. Stevenson feels bad about accidentally killing a cop, yeah, but within minutes he's back out on the streets and suddenly the bad guys' heads all look like grapefruits smashed with hammers.
Insane ideas don't by themselves make movies bad. Frequently, it's just the opposite, as in Wanted, the Loom of Fate that wove the destinies of those who must be killed made that movie, oh, 800 times better than it deserved. But idiot ideas require an idiot energy to keep them humming along, and while War Zone's story isn't sluggish, it's far from lively enough to make its X-Treme capital punishment!! stance anything but foolish.
Then again, asking a Punisher movie for a thoughtful take on vigilantism is akin to asking a dog to do your dishes: not only does everything end up broken and slobbered on, but you also look stupid for thinking it was a good idea in the first place.
By the end of War Zone, if I hadn't already seen the Punisher in his other crappy movies, I'm not sure I would have even known who he was. I certainly wouldn't have cared.
Grade: C-
